The People Behind My Eyes

Another point you’ve missed concerning the plight of football player Sean Taylor is that he was moved from one form of violence to another and expected to control and contain it. You can not move a lion from The Bronx Zoo to a The Posh Zoo and tell him not to be wild. A zoo is a zoo is a zoo. The rules and animals are the same, it’s wild. (Keep in mind the above is an example of wild behaviors – the rough and tough Bronx compared to what is considered luxury and exclusive or The Posh Zoo.)

What you asked Sean Taylor to do was go from running the streets wild with weapons and plenty of “bitches” to running with a different form of gang and their form of violence. His old form of violence could have lead him straight to prison. This new form put him in the lime light, gave him cash flow and respect. It gave him freedom but it didn’t give him an opportunity to make a real difference in the quality of his life because the one factor not removed from the scenery is violence.

How can today’s football players early on exposed to gang activity not see the similarities between football and gang activity? If they go from wearing the same colours on the street to wearing the same colours as a team that goes out and mows down the next man for possession of pig skin, money and glory how are they to ever make any real separation from the old and new life? The main connection between their old life and their new life is violence. The glory is much the same. They make the news almost equally. The similarities are striking.

My experience with violence is that it is never really controlled. But you’ve asked these young football players early exposed to street violence (the kind that doesn’t include pig skin) to see and understand the differences in mowing down the man that doesn’t belong to their gang/ football team. You yourself have commented on how some players have to take themselves to a very violent place in their mind to play the game, to block so those with good executing skills can make a play. But tell me how a person who is routinely taken to such levels of violence can contain and control it, turn it on and off like a light switch and contain that light always in socially acceptable ways?

Mr. Whitlock, you cannot confuse a man routinely, so thoroughly and expect him to make the right decision every time.

Sincerely,
Austin of Sundrip Journals

Thursday, November 29, 2007-11:47AM EST   sean taylor, Fox News, Fox Sports , violence.