A Man, Not a Narrative

Eugene Robinson writes: A 24-year-old man, a professional athlete in his prime, is gunned down as his fiancé cowers in fear and their young daughter sleeps -- it's hard to imagine a more tragic story. Period. I found myself deeply affected by the news. I think that in part, it was due to the fact the I loss a collge friend of mine last month - he was stabbed to death - he was 26. I hope you agree that all who mourn Redskins safety Sean Taylor's passing should resist the temptation to fit what little we really know about his life and death into some kind of familiar narrative about race and pathology.

When asked about Taylor's sudden and awful death, Coach Joe Gibbs said simply that life is fragile. Others have not been so modest, or so wise. They recount Taylor's past "troubles" and try to make him emblematic of Young Black Men -- the mean streets, the parasitic friends, the casual violence, the weapons, the beefs, etc., etc. This is an argument, not an explanation. It's lazy and wrong, and it is unfair.

Do me a favor: If you have to impose a narrative on Sean Taylor's death, pick something other than the Young Black Men story. How about the Molded into Violence narrative -- the story of how Taylor, like other professional football players was rewarded all his life for the ability to create sudden, explosive havoc on the football field, leaving opponents battered and broken; so why should anyone be surprised that he died a violent death? Or make it into a story about South Florida, where bizarre, brutal crime is are common place. Those are bogus narratives, too, but at least they provide a little variety.

Better yet, don't try to make Sean Taylor's life and death into any kind of cautionary tale at all. He was a complicated man. He loved his family, he was a loyal friend, he didn't like talking to the media, he hit as hard as anyone in the National Football League, and he doted on his daughter. He had "turned his life around," they say, as if navigating the shoals of career, fatherhood, love and maturity were a simple matter of taking a few GPS readings and heading, um, that way. Here's what we know -- at this point, all we can possibly know: Life is fragile. And Sean Taylor was just 24.