"Pick 'em up, fuck 'em -let-em-lay Where I'm from we see'a fuckin dead body er'yday.."
~~Lil Wayne~~
I hate to do a post like this right now, but I wouldn't be me if I didn't. So fuck it, I am thinking it, so I might as well go ahead and say it.
Sean Taylor was star safety for the Washington Redskins, and he tragically lost his life this morning after being shot in his South Florida home. I won't get into the story, I think everyone reading this is quite familiar with it by now.
It's sad, and if you turn on the news and all the usual media outlets everyone is being respectful by saying all the right things and offering all the proper condolences. But sorry, I just can't go there right now. I am pissed because yet another young black man has lost his life to tragic senseless violence. I am pissed because two little children will be fatherless, a mother has lost her son, and a woman has lost her future husband. Make no mistake, all those white folks who live in Northern Virginia who happen to be a part of "Redskin Nation" could really give a fuck about Sean Taylor and his family. They are losing a great safety for their Skins, and that's the reason for their sorrows. Period.
But for me his death is personal, because Sean Taylor could be one of a couple of hundred young black men who have been slaughtered on the streets of Killadelphia this year alone. Sorry, the only difference between any one of these young men and Sean Taylor is that Sean Taylor could play some serious football, and they could not. They were stuck here on these mean ass streets and thought they couldn't get out. Taylor could, and by all accounts, he fucked that up. Taylor refused to leave the mean streets of Miami behind, and if the reports of him taking a plea after beating down some dude with a gun butt is true, he was embracing that life a lot more than he should have. I heard Michael Wilbon's lament on T.V. tonight (and I am paraphrasing here) that If Jason Campbell (The Skins QB) was shot to death he would have been saddened and surprised. With Taylor, Wilbon said, he was saddened to hear of his death by shooting, but not surprised. There is a reason for that, Sean Taylor was no angel, and by all accounts, quite a few people were telling him to leave his old neighbored and his old running buddies behind. Hey, like my man Robert Lester Marley says; the wages if sin is death (Or was that someone else?), and sometimes you just can't escape your past.
So another dead young black man, killed by another black man. "Oh field how do you know the killer is black, they haven't even caught Taylor's killer yet". Yeah right! This is an open bet to anyone reading this. If you want to take the field up on a bet as to the race of the shooter, send me an e-mail. My favorite charity against yours.
We are all so caught up in the tragic death of a famous football player, that unfortunately the real story will be lost again. We will be talking about all of Taylor's athletic attributes, what his loss will mean for the Redskins, and possibly the actual details of the shooting. But we won't be talking about the way society and a race of people have abandoned an entire generation of young black men. Young men who are killing each other in record numbers without remorse. Whether their chosen victim happens to be an NFL star, or just another rival on a North Philly street corner.
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