Sean Taylor: Morality and the Lesson of Hope

By: D.K. Wilson

Where I live there is a dusting of snow on the ground, all the foliage, save for the firs, is bare. If you were foreign to this time of the year you might think most everything is dead.But this is only a time of rest. In a few months another season will be in bloom, color will return to all that we see and all life will be awakened once again.

That, is nature.

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By now, everyone has heard the news and knows the story. Sean Taylor’s sister’s boyfriend was innocently bragging to his boys - they are that, literally - about Sean Taylor’s possessions. One or more of those listening got the idea to rob Taylor’s house. You know, grab some of his riches for themselves.

From the looks of things, they broke into Taylor’s home once, rifled through his things, tried to get into his safe and left. They were such amateurs that they left a kitchen knife on a pillow in Taylor’s bedroom. Eight days later they returned to finish the job. Unfortunately, they were in for a surprise - Sean Taylor was home.

Taylor, with his fiancee (not “girlfriend,” fiancee) and 18-month-old daughter, heard noises outside their bedroom door. The Washington Redskins safety grabbed his machete from under his bed and went to the door. He began to open the door and it flung open. One of the robbers fired twice and one of the bullets struck Taylor’s femoral artery and within minutes killed him; the other bullet lodged in a wall.

The robbers ran. That was November 26.

The Miami Metro-Dade investigators assessed the situation at Taylor’s house and quickly gathered enough evidence to quickly realize the crimes were committed by rank amateurs - probably kids.

Friday, November 30 the robbers - one of whom is Taylor’s murderer - were arrested.

They were kids - three black, one Hispanic; ages 20, 18, 17, and 17.

Now five lives are wasted. One, the victim, is dead; one will surely receive life in prison, at least; and the others will be in prison so long they might as well be dead.

That, is unnatural.

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On November 21, five days before the Sean Taylor murder by firearm - one of about 450 across the United States in that time span (or one every 16 minutes) - Jeffrey Kluger of Time Magazine authored a lengthy article titled, “What Makes Us Moral.” Kluger explores the capacity for humans - and animals - to feel compassion and empathy for others and how far those traits extend before they begin to break down.

Kluger reports that scientists have found that humans have a nearly irreconcilable dark side that leads us to commandeer holocausts under the guise of what is best for the nation-state, to enslave others for personal gain, to commit genocide against each other under the guise of progress but for the equally dubious reasons of power and fear, and to generally harm each other for whatever excuse strikes us as best at the time. In this way we are far different than our animal counterparts.

Unlike animals, we are savages.

Sean Taylor’s murder was the result of “whatever excuse strikes us as best at the time” and “fear.” The “whatever excuse” was the act of robbing a rich man’s house to possess his things. “Fear” came into play when the robbers were confronted with Taylor rather than an empty bedroom.

However, there are deeper issues at work in the death of Sean Taylor than just some kids on a stealing spree, no matter how brief, who shot a man out of fear. Deeper issues in his murder, in the irresponsible manner in which he was depicted, deeper issues than we care to examine.

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With the murder of Sean Taylor we had black reporters, burned by too many recalcitrant black athletes, racing to ally themselves with the “right” side this time. Tired of ending up as punching bags for the public, tired of facing unwelcome glares form their white, or conservative black peers, they were not going to get beaten to the punch on this one. These columnists ran like the wind to their laptops to make sure they were on the cutting edge of the castigation of Taylor. And they appeared to revel in their new role. Some white reporters were taken aback at the venom with which their peers spoke and found themselves defending Taylor, begging for patience and prudence relative to the freshly murdered young man.

The conservative black columnists sat upright, hands folded tightly, knowing their time for indulging in their self-righteous house slave attitude was short, now sat back with an uncommon, “I told you so” ease in their public appearances. They pontificated with sureness that Sean Taylor was the victim of his own street violence, his hip-hop lifestyle, and the “thugs” with which he chose to surround himself. Even when they weren’t quite sure and their columns betrayed the private lie of telling their peers that they would wait until all the facts were in, they fell back on the obvious bail-out, “we can assume a black man killed Taylor.” They must have fallen down laughing, barely able to deposit their checks written by, “major sports media outlet,” or “national daily newspaper.”

“We’re paid to be cynical,” was the excuse given on national television scant hours before the arrests were made public; even after the Miami Metro-Dade police department director Robert Parker assured us that Taylor’s murder was a random one and not some come-uppance for past nefarious acts.

This columnist’s ombudsman even rushed to his aid in a sordid attempt to critique the public’s critique of the writer she felt compelled to defend. In a typical obfuscation tactic, she limited the conversation to columnists so as to deflect attention from the initial article from her paper vilifying Taylor through the irresponsible act of stealing a paragraph directly from the original Associated Press article detailing Taylor’s murder and adding a local incident with law enforcement for which Taylor was exonerated of all wrong-doing. The passage read:

In 2004, he was arrested in Fairfax County on suspicion of drunken driving. A judge later dismissed the charge after viewing a videotape of the field sobriety test and seeing no basis for the arrest. Taylor was nevertheless convicted of refusing to take a breathalyzer test in that incident - but the conviction was dismissed on appeal.

The black columnist in question wailed that it is the public that wants to deify athletes. “I don’t give PR or corporate answers,” was another of his responses to the criticism, sounding more like a harangued politico firing misguided missives from his Capitol Hill bunker than a sports journalist who writes for a nationally-read daily newspaper.

Morality be damned. The fact that journalists are paid to ask - and sometimes answer - questions, be damned. Only the animal known as human will change the rules of the playing field or make them up as they go, if for nothing else but to save themselves the potential embarrassment of having to recognize that they erred; or to justify their maleficent behavior.

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Even Antrel Rolle, who was the only person not a columnist or television talking head to say Taylor kept largely to himself, and did not regularly do the club thing or run with a posse; said Taylor was a hermit, said he was a good man.

But what if Sean Taylor was the average 20- to 24-year-old who liked to hang with his boys, and party when it was cool to do so? What if he was Ben Roethlisberger or Rex Grossman or Matt Leinart, all of whom have been photographed inebriated, or at a party, or clubbing?

Unless Sean Taylor hurt himself, he would be alive today. The question is, why?

The simple answer is, black-on-black crime is an expression of self-hate in America. One columnist has learned that he can earn his keep by expressing this sentiment. He bolsters his flimsy assessment by using incendiary catchphrases, while oversimplifying both societal problems and solutions as they are reflected in sports. He would call Taylor’s killers members of the “black Ku Klux Klan” and blame something ephemeral called — “hip-hop culture.”

To better understand his perspective it is instructional to know that, instead of ever fully explaining his trite quips, he has a propensity for throwing the adjective “ignorant” toward anyone who might disagree with him, or ask for a deeper explanation of his assertions.

Of course, nothing is as simple as hot-button phrases tossed at an unwitting public. Still, many of the problems in the black community can be expressed and understood through simple a cross-cultural comparison.

If you attend “white boy” nightclubs, you will find they appear eerily similar to “black boy” nightclubs. The young men at each dress in a similar fashion; hip-hop wear is standard. Bejeweled chains, bracelets, and watches are worn as accoutrements signifying wealth, status, and power. All of the vagaries that form hip-hop clothing style are represented. You will find that the women are stunningly similar in appearance. The music is the same. Close your eyes and you cannot tell one from the other.

Now, add a successful male athlete and their friends into each environment and have those athletes be native to the nightclub’s city; a white athlete into the predominantly white-attended nightclub, a black athlete into the predominantly black-attended nightclub. Then you will see the difference. And perhaps you will begin to see what eats at the heart of America, but is accentuated in the black - male - community.

In the white nightclub, strangers may offer to buy the athlete a drink. They may approach and let the athlete know what a good job he is doing. Sure, some wiseass might have something derogatory to say, but a bartender will be quick to call a bouncer at the first sniff of trouble. If barbs are traded out of earshot of a nightclub employee, they are almost always easily quelled. The white athlete is free to mix and mingle as he pleases.

The black athlete’s experience is far too often the polar opposite of his white peer. When the black athlete and his friends enter, the nightclub atmosphere becomes immediately charged with negative energy. Some male club patrons immediately look to “size up” the athlete; what’s he wearing (damn, I wouldn’t wear that mess if I had his money); what’s his crew like (they sure look like punks); what jewelry does he wear (man, I got earrings that nice; or - damn, I want them); how big is he (he ain’t all that; or - the bigger they are, the harder they fall). Men walk by and act as if the athlete doesn’t exist. Men walk by and glare. Men try to catch one of the athlete’s friends alone in the restroom and contrive a confrontation, or perhaps they run and tell their friends the athlete mouthed something foul.

The most important difference between the two clubs, though, is this: many of the men who know of the white athlete can walk up to him and say hello. Their envy is blunted because, unlike their black counterparts, many of them have a financial future. Sure, they might never earn as much as the athlete, but they are on their way to living comfortable lives.

Unlike their black peers, the patrons of the predominantly white nightclub have something called hope.

Their condo might not be the largest. They might be renting their home. But they have earned those comforts through the premise that hard work will pay off instilled in them and manifested by the comforts with which their parents provided them; that they learned from their friends’ parents, their environments.

Hope.

That is what is missing from black, urban environments. In a ghetto, in a housing project, there are few to no black lawyers and doctors and psychologists and real estate agents and land developers and dentists and professors; and whatever other profession you can name.

Moneyed people in the ghetto are nearly always preachers and dope dealers. And when you watch each successful one roll by in their ostentatious vehicle of choice, the question must be asked, which one of them is really big pimpin’?

Hope.

The other examples of “success” are… the rapper and the athlete. The vast majority of successful black men in professions where academic prowess is necessary to advance, leave for the suburbs as soon as they are financially viable. The goal is to protect the amenities they have acquired, and to provide their children with the one thing that is missing for most ghetto children.

Hope.

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A child in a ghetto is raised in an environment where they are surrounded by people who have made poor choices in their lives. Now, this is not to say that there are not plenty of hard-working people in financially-suppressed areas. But the statistics of the ghetto are percentages of failure. Black people comprise 13% of the total U.S. population but comprise 30% of the prison populace. More black men are in jail and prison than in colleges and universities. Of black male high school dropouts, 65% are unemployed; 21% are or have been incarcerated. Sixty percent of black men in their 30s who were high school dropouts have been or are incarcerated. The statistics of failure in black, underprivileged areas are endless.

And of all the major sports, the NFL is most like a ghetto.

From the moment a rookie signs his non-guaranteed contract, he will make a series of poor choices to remain employed as a player in the National Football League. NFL coaches are the most abusive of all major sport coaches. The player must choose to accept this abuse to play. NFL players have the shortest life-spans of any major sport athletes, yet players will perform despite injuries that will be debilitating later in their lives. They will take Novocain shots, cortisone shots, wear protective padding, fail to reveal injuries to trainers and coaches; all to stay on the football field. They will take pay cuts to stay on the field, they will play special teams in addition to their normal positions to remain on a team.

All this to earn the lowest wages of any major-sport athlete.

Combine this consistent pattern of poor choices with an inherent feeling of immortality each time an NFL player walks off a field on his own, and you have a lethal cocktail mix for trouble. With these variables at play, there can be no wondering why more NFL players find themselves entangled in the court system than athletes from other leagues.

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And now for some tacks that are made of brass…

Though their bunker mentality will not allow them to apologize, it is important to name those who would be less than scrupulous in their attacks of Sean Taylor. The first set of names that need mentioning are Walt Sedensky of the Associated Press and Amy Shipley, Debbi Wilgoren, and Jason LaCanfora of the Washington Post, all need to send their apologies first to the Taylor family and then to the public. They are largely responsible for setting the, “Sean Taylor’s past caught up with him” innuendo into motion. Providing details of his past and even including incidents for which Taylor was exonerated in his so-called shady past in a distended context with the rest of your articles is unethical, at least.

The next crew to be tagged and bagged as irresponsible, unethical, and in some respects racist, are Colin Cowherd, Skip Bayless, and Jay Crawford (don’t think your “why did he have a machete under his bed?” question and the “he didn’t seem to be able to get away from his past” statement went unnoticed).

Among other unnecessarily, inflammatory, and racist comments, Cowherd said the following:

Sean Taylor, great player has a history of really really bad judgment, really really bad judgment. Cops, assault, spitting, DUI. I’m supposed to believe his judgment got significantly better in two years, from horrible to fantastic? ‘But Colin he cleaned up his act.’ Well yeah, just because you clean the rug doesn’t mean you got everything out. Sometimes you’ve got stains, stuff so deep it never ever leaves.

“Cops” (more distended context), assault (okay), spitting (during a football game, right?), DUI (see Tony LaRussa).

Colin Cowherd apparently has failed to clean up his act. He appears to be egged on to continue his insensitive ways by his producers and his bosses at ESPN. Cowherd has enough of a history of this kind of talk to have been reined in years ago; by now, his verbal offenses are worthy of firing.

Anything for a buck, right?

But for ESPN, rather than seek true diversity in their hiring - which would be diversity in the type of discourse produced in its content - ESPN, like other corporate entities of its ilk, has chosen to bolster its already well-understood stance on myriad sports and sports-related topics by adding Howard Bryant and J.A. Adande. Bryant’s understanding of the issue of steroids is incredibly limited and myopic for a man who wrote a book on the subject; but his perspectives, narrow and incorrect as they are, are right in line with those of his new bosses. Adande announced to the nation that he is on permanent “thug patrol,” by blaming “hip-hop culture” for the transgressions of Andy Reid’s sons.

You get exactly what you pay for.

Widely listened to New York City WFAN radio show hosts, Mike and the “Mad Dog” - Mike Francesca and Chris Russo - added fuel to the fire by claiming incorrectly that Taylor was a troubled inner-city youth with an allegiance to “gun play” and hanging out with the wrong characters. The two went so far as to juxtapose Taylor’s neighborhood with that of hockey players. Russo went on to discuss his neighborhood where MLB players Moises Alou and Jose Reyes, and “Asian doctors” reside. All this jumping to conclusions was finally stymied later in the afternoon, just before three o’clock, when the two were informed of Taylor’s actual background. Russo’s response, if it wasn’t so repugnant, would have been comedic:

“Are you sure about that? I wasn’t aware of that. So we’re using the wrong guy here to talk about dysfunctional homes is what you’re telling me.”

Right.

The WEEI crew of Dennis and Callahan had this fascinatingly uninformed conversation with guest Adam Schefter of the NFL Network:

John Dennis: “Not that Virginia prosecutors are going to bring any additional charges against Michael Vick for this, but in a very perverse, ironic, weird way, Michael Vick may have unknowingly provided part of the reason why Sean Taylor is dead today.”

The thought supplied by Schefter is that because Vick was arrested and convicted for dog-fighting charges, many NFL players ridded themselves of their pitbulls and bought guns to replace the dogs.

Gary Callahan: If they were indeed targeting him, they were going to get to him somewhere, sometime. I just don’t understand why he couldn’t move to Washington, D.C. area like so many other players, gotten out of that neighborhood and moved somewhere - big mansion with gates and locks up in Washington, D.C. What, are they gonna chase him up there?

To which Schefter replied:

Well, you’re talking about psychological and sociological issues where people basically don’t break away from some of the neighborhoods where they were raised up…. why can’t people do that?

Finally, Dennis said:

Generally it’s economics, but that wouldn’t apply to Sean Taylor, now would it?

Who is they? The teenagers arrested for Taylor’s murder? And as far as anyone can tell, if Taylor chose to live in the neighborhood in which he was raised, he would have remained in a middle-class area removed from the urban blight that Dennis, Callahan, and Schefter discussed and led the public to believe he was from. However, Taylor moved into a beautiful home in an exclusive area, even farther removed from whatever type of neighborhood the radio show hosts and their guests assumed was Taylor’s.

There is no reason to think that Gerry Callahan, John Dennis, and Schefter engaged in purposely racist dialogue. Yet their insensitivity toward their murdered subject cannot be overlooked. Additionally, can we overlook or underestimate the damage they caused by engaging in discourse that allows an often undiscerning public to take their word as gospel?

Like Cowherd, Callahan and Dennis have a reputation of spewing invectives and turning a civil conversation into something less than savory. Like Cowherd, they have enabling producers and bosses for whom ratings are everything; and if legal trouble does come, they are more than willing to rely on lawyers, deep pockets, and legal loopholes in the nature of corporate speech to get them through the day.

Next, unfortunately, it is necessary to turn to the blaxploitation columnists who used Sean Taylor to take out their frustration over defending the scene in Las Vegas during NBA All-Star Week - except Jason Whitlock, who managed to both glorify and vilify the proceedings in separate commentaries written within 72 hours of each other - defending Adam “Pacman” Jones. defending Terry “Tank” Johnson, and defending Michael Vick.

There is a special place for Drew Sharp, Michael Wilbon, Shaun Powell, and Jason Whitlock. There are many blaxploitation columnists around the country, but these are the most visible culprits.

By the time Sharp, of the Detroit Free Press, penned his blasphemous column, the police stated that the crime was a random act, not a targeted attack. But that piece of information didn’t stop Sharp - or Wilbon, Powell, and Whitlock, for that matter - from parroting his peers’ words:

And perhaps the police will discover the shooting was nothing more than a random burglary gone awry. But it’s also possible further investigation will reveal that Taylor’s shooting was the last domino in a chain of recklessly irresponsible events that involved the young man.

Would it surprise anyone if that were the case? No…

But he also had a past that included an aggravated assault with a firearm charge. In 2005, Taylor allegedly pointed a gun at two people whom he and his entourage thought stole some vehicles belonging to Taylor.

After a year-long legal battle, Taylor pleaded no contest to two misdemeanors that protected his football career and $40-million contract from the Redskins.

Wilbon:

I’ve known guys like Taylor all my life, grew up with some. They still have shades of gray and shouldn’t be painted in black and white… I know how I feel about Taylor, and this latest news isn’t surprising in the least, not to me. Whether this incident is or isn’t random, Taylor grew up in a violent world, embraced it, claimed it, loved to run in it and refused to divorce himself from it. He ain’t the first and won’t be the last. We have no idea what happened, or if what we know now will be revised later. It’s sad, yes, but hardly surprising…

You see, just because Taylor was changing his life, don’t assume the people who pumped 15 bullets into his SUV a couple of years ago were in the process of changing theirs. Maybe it was them, maybe not. Maybe it was somebody else who had a beef with Taylor a year earlier, maybe not. Maybe it was retribution or envy or some volatile combination.

Whitlock:

Within hours of his death, there was a story circulating that members of the black press were complaining that news outlets were disrespecting Taylor’s victimhood by reporting on his troubled past.

No disrespect to Taylor, but he controlled the way he would be remembered by the way he lived. His immature, undisciplined behavior with his employer, his run-ins with law enforcement, which included allegedly threatening a man with a loaded gun, and the fact a vehicle he owned was once sprayed with bullets are all pertinent details when you’ve been murdered.

Marcellus Wiley, a former NFL player, made the radio circuit Wednesday, singing the tune that athletes are targets. That was his explanation for the murders of Taylor and Broncos cornerback Darrent Williams and the armed robberies of NBA players Antoine Walker and Eddy Curry.

Really?

Let’s cut through the bull(manure) and deal with reality. Black men are targets of black men. Period. Go check the coroner’s office and talk with a police detective. These bullets aren’t checking W-2s.

All three, despite police reports to the contrary, blamed Taylor’s death on Taylor. If we are to believe these writers, Taylor was a constantly reckless, gun-toting felon, and a thug just waiting for the death that befell him.

No disrespect to Taylor, right Whitlock?

Powell saved his unethical talk concerning Taylor for television appearances. He felt it was the right and responsibility of journalists to mention Taylor’s past and wonder - again, despite police reports to the contrary - if his past is connected to his death. Powell, like the others, save Whitlock, said that even if the police show that the murder was random they would still not be surprised if something else came out later that did connect Taylor’s past with his murder.

These guys sound like the “conspiracy theorists” they so enjoy castigating whenever they have the opportunity.

As revered as these men are in their professions, they are on the verge of becoming buffoonish due to their recent writings. If they wrote from the same place of privilege as do their white peers, they could, to some small extent, be excused.

But each morning when they look in the mirror, they must face their blackness. They too can be pulled over in their posh vehicles at any moment for Driving While Black. They too could be mistaken for a con man in a suit, or a large-scale dope dealer on his way to launder funds, and arrested. If these men had no direct connection to times when police dogs bit black people to keep them from protesting for their rights (today they’re still used in the South to keep black college athletes from over-celebrating touchdowns) they could be implored to familiarize themselves with their pasts to adequately speak of the present.

But they have no excuses for what Whitlock would term their “ignorant ramblings.”

With the murder of Sean Taylor, these men had the opportunity to stand as giants of their profession. They had the opportunity to stand despite being cautious but wrong in the recent past, despite the sideways glances from their white peers, despite the inane babbling about how Taylor ‘had this coming to him’ from the sporting public.

Instead, they have become everything they say they despise. These men - all facile thinkers and accomplished writers - like too many of the athletes they cover, have stepped onto William Rhoden’s conveyor belt.

And they like where they stand.

From their present perches they can no longer touch what made them who they are. Sure, they have memories, but there is nothing in their daily lives to remind them of what made them thirst to find the right word at the right moment; to say the right thing at the right time. Money does not necessarily take them away from what they were, but the combination of money and becoming a “personality” has removed them from reality. The wall between themselves and the people they cover has been stripped away; athlete and journalist competing for camera time and notoriety. This is the trap at the end of the conveyor belt. It is the box that is the cult of personality, and once entered it can only be escaped to the detriment of the person inside.

It is the other side of the coin with a housing project stamped on one side. In the box everything is beautiful, yet there is one thing that is missing. It is the same thing that is gone from the coin’s reverse face. On one side what is missing is painfully obvious. On the other, you might never know something is amiss until it is too late…

Or until someone like Sean Taylor is murdered.

However, when that benchmark event occurs, everyone awakens and shows exactly where they feel they are in life. We now know for sure that some people are callous and cruel and have a palpable distaste for those not like them. We now know that some people are compassionate beyond their images. We know that others’ agendas will not allow them to provide us with anything other than their usual fare, a template they attempt to stamp on every problem; they expect us to be fooled by the folly of their incessant prattle. We know that some live in the box at the end of the conveyor belt and are so tired that they, at least for the moment, have quit the fight and joined the callous and cruel.

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We have enough evolved to know that we are different from other animals in the kingdom…

I was watching a show about Floyd Mayweather when clarity came. Old home videos showed a young Mayweather fighting in his family’s back yard in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The scene switched to a state-of-the-art gym in Las Vegas, Nevada. A new generation of young Mayweathers watched their father and uncle train. One child shows the uncommon promise Floyd must have showed. Others watch and play as children do. Mayweather says the difference between his relatives and siblings and him is that he did what he needed to do because he had to; he continues to do what he does so that they have a choice.

Beyond choice, what the young Mayweathers have is the same thing the barren trees have as they stand quietly awaiting winter to come and go. It is something every human needs but something that most humans do not know. With it, we possess the essence of happiness.

Without it, we are less than animals, less than the trees; queasily outside of nature and one with nothing. Without it for everyone, the human race will surely fall.

“It” is…

Hope.

No child, no adult can successfully survive without it.

D.K. Wilson is a freelance sports writer. He is better known on the internet as "DWil," and writes for Sports On My Mind.

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