Scenes from My Life: A Memoir

by Michael K. Williams

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

If you push something down, it’ll find its way out. You can’t run from it. Jay-Z says we can’t heal what we never reveal. And it’s true. You can’t heal what you never reveal.

We have to get back to the idea of the village, figure out how to mend our struggling families in the community. Give them culture, respect, connection, the experience of dreaming and hoping. The permission to dream is so important. The permission to love yourself is so important. You don’t have to get scarred up in your face and go through endless rehabs and almost die and overdose to finally understand that you’re worth something.