Violence and the American Athlete - RIP Sean Taylor

For those of you who are unaware, Washington Redskins free safety Sean Taylor died this morning after being shot in the upper thigh sometime last night during what is being called a robbery. The only shot that hit Taylor severed his femoral artery, leading to a great deal of blood loss. Although he slipped into what appeared to be a coma, it is being reported that at some point during the early morning hours, Taylor managed to squeeze the hand of his nurse. He never regained consciousness, however, and the world lost another young black male due to gun violence.

The point has already been made all over the internet, and perhaps rightfully so, that his death is not unique in that young black males die due to gun violence every day in America. So what makes hundreds (perhaps thousands) of people who have never met Sean Taylor so despondent about the situation? Put simply, he was "their" player - either at "Tha U" (University of Miami) or for the Redskins. Unfortunately, Sean Taylor is no longer quite so unique as a professional athlete either. Darrent Williams was gunned down last New Year's Eve; both Antoine Walker and Eddy Curry were held at gunpoint and robbed in their own homes. While these things happen everyday, millionaire athletes are obviously more visible, and thus the media pick up on these events.

Perhaps the saddest part of the Sean Taylor murder is all of the conjecture surrounding the incident - not because of the conjecture itself, but rather due to some of the vitriol that it spurs. Sean Taylor (whose father happens to be the chief of police in a small Florida town) is known to have associated with some pretty questionable characters and to have displayed some questionable decision-making on the field. It also now appears that several days before his murder, someone broke into his home and left a kitchen knife on his bed in what would seem to be a menacing message. Although we do not know what happened in Sean Taylor's home the night of his murder, it would not be surprising if Sean was murdered, rather than shot during an aborted burglary attempt. The shame of this situation is that almost everyone who knew Sean personally has admitted that while he was immature over the past several years, he had become a different person since the birth of his child and was trying to distance himself from any dangerous friends and activities. Despite this, there has been an astounding amount of commentary on the internet (particularly in the comments section of the ESPN story on his murder) along the lines of "he was a thug and deserved it". Some of this is simply racist idiots trying to stir up trouble, but quite a bit appears to be sincere, which may be even more unnerving. That is, rather than some racist rant, it appears that many of these commenters believe that Sean's death was simply a matter of his past catching up to him, and that he deserved it because of his past. While the former may be true, the latter certainly is not.

Sean Taylor's death is merely the latest high-profile crime against a rich athlete, but it is so much more than that to his family and friends. It represents something far worse - the silencing of a bright future both professionally (in the NFL) and personally (with his family). Yes, young black males are gunned down every day, and the fact that he was a rich athlete does not make Sean Taylor more important than anyone else. But we should use the fact that his death is so visible to really examine what it means to "be a thug" or to "come from the wrong neighborhood", and figure out how we can protect the next generation of potential victims.