Scenes from My Life: A Memoir

Every addict, every alcoholic has a self-loathing; we bathe ourselves in that. It’s the way for the addiction to keep us on the ropes, keep us connected to the darkness. It fuels off of it.

Getting out only matters if you take your blessings, your hard-fought wisdom, your scarred humanity, and go back in.

Heavier than the blood in our veins are the stories we inherit about ourselves.

I remember the first lotion my mother ever put on my face was a bleaching cream called Artra, to lighten my skin. My defiance, my darkness, my weakness—they were all fodder for my mother. I learned to perform from an early age, imitating what I thought she wanted to see, hiding who I truly was. But it was never enough.

I once heard the saying I’ve never met a strong person with an easy past. Those who have been through the gauntlet survive for a reason.

A man gotta live what he know, right? —Omar Little

By the time I entered high school, I already felt like damaged goods. Injured by my father’s absence, roughed-up by my mother’s hard love, and too meek to stand up for myself, I was a ripe target. After two men in positions of authority—one from school and one from church—molested me, I fell

Show me a struggling man and I’ll show you a boy never given a chance to change.

We cannot make good decisions from a distance…. If you are not proximate, you cannot change the world. —Bryan Stevenson

The United States has the highest juvenile incarceration rate in the world

That scared boy was always just underneath the surface. No matter how many years I put behind me, he was the voice in my head and the spirit in my body. I carried him with me wherever I went.

Her voice is fierce but not hard. It’s optimistic, proud—declarative. It lands with authority, and I trust her because of that confidence.

These kids are growing up faster than we did, have been exposed to more, and are not as naive as we once were. You can see it; this generation is different, and they're tired of the bullshit. The things that tear apart the adults- race, sexual orientation, religion, identity- don't seen to bother them as much, if at all. They're focused on big-picture things, like making sure the Earth doesn't kick us off it.

When white people catch a cold, they say, black people get pneumonia.

No one wakes up and says they want to be a gangbanger or a drug dealer- that's the last stop on the train. That what you do when you're drowning and reaching out for something- anything- to survive. By the time they get to the corner, there has been a series of things that led to that decision. No one wakes up at the top of the mountain and decides they would like it better down there on the bottom. They end up there out of desperation. We don't spend enough time examining the wider picture, the steps that get them there. We don't tell that part of the story. And to tell half the story is to spread a lie.

As I learned more about the juvenile and criminal justice systems, I was reminded of all those jail and prison visits I'd made in my life. What struck me was just how regular it was. We have to take a second to process how messed up that is. We have normalized the abnormal so completely we don't even realize it. Why was this part of Black boys' coming-of-age? Why are some things praised and aspired to? Why are certain things like serving time held up as a badge of honor when they only lead to ruin?

Way before I was anything or anyone, I was an addict. That was my identity, what people thought of me if they thought of me at all.

I met a community of people who also didn't fit in their own homes and neighborhoods, so they came here, and together we joined up and formed our own.

The hood is no meritocracy; there was nothing special about me that saved my life. It just wasn't my time.

and the struggles that nearly broke me connect me with so many others. I want to tell my story not because it’s unique but because it is not. We may each be fighting our own fights, but we keep going: that is what ties us together. Everyone who is left here has lived to fight another day.

I need to use what was given to me to bring others up. I don’t want to be in the spotlight, I want to be the spotlight itself. Shine on others.

You have to navigate carefully—guide without instructing. They’re hungry to take action but don’t want to be told how—especially by those who are responsible for the problems. I hear from them, and there’s some of that positive rebellious energy: You can’t tell me a damn thing; you’re the ones who fucked it all up in the first place. They’re not wrong.

I grew up in a household where a child was to be seen and not heard. I’m beginning to unlearn that. These kids are growing up faster than we did, have been exposed to more, and are not as naïve as we once were. You can see it; this generation is different, and they’re tired of the bullshit. The things that tear apart the adults—race, sexual orientation, religion, identity—don’t seem to bother them as much, if at all. They’re focused on big-picture things, like making sure the Earth doesn’t kick us off it. Those coming of age carry a different energy, and they are going to bring change—whether it’s Greta Thunberg in Sweden working on climate change or Parkland, Florida, shooting survivor X González working on gun violence. I’ve seen it at the ground level. To watch the lights go on in these children’s eyes, to see them empowered, is everything to me.

Like I always say: This is not rocket science. We know what these kids need. Just to be seen. And loved. And told they matter. For some kids it takes just one adult to care about them, take an interest in them. Once you get activated by that idea, it makes it damn near impossible to turn your back on any single one of them.

The best description I’ve come across for this phenomenon is from author Ibram X. Kendi, who wrote, “Harmless White fun is Black lawlessness.

These kids are demonized by people who know nothing about them and don’t care to know. They are pronounced criminals before they have a chance to define themselves. We have given them nothing to hope for, look forward to, or dream about. If anything, we’re the superpredators, snatching their lives away before we know what those lives can be.

Everyone knows that our criminal justice system is broken. But before we look at the justice system in this country, we have to look at the juvenile justice system. It’s the same river. We just need to start farther upstream. At what point in these kids’ lives could they have been redirected into a different way of life? What can we do at these inflection points to divert them? We need to change the narrative.

Kids are just looking for truth. If you give them that, I realized, then they are going to receive you.

Look at me,” I said, “living the dream, on TV, doing what I love, and still drawn in by drugs and bad choices, living in this painful place. I don’t even have my youth to blame.” I knew, at forty-one, I was emotionally and mentally stunted, though I didn’t say that aloud. I was still a child in my head, rebelling against my mom, saying fuck the world, making bad choices, hiding from what I didn’t want to face. And I was still teetering. “I’m not out of the woods, and it can all disappear if I keep at it,” I told them. “You don’t get too many chances when you look like me.