Truthdig - Reports - When Did the Victim Become the Murderer?

Truthdig - Reports - When Did the Victim Become the Murderer?: "WASHINGTON—Why do you suppose so many people were so quick to blame Sean Taylor for his own murder? Relax, that’s a rhetorical question. There’s no need for self-exculpatory huffing and puffing, no need to point out that the verdict of suicide-by-bad-attitude—pronounced so often this week, and so coldly—was usually couched in broad hints or softened by the nebulous fog of the conditional mood. Everyone knew what was really being said, and everyone knew why. Taylor instantly became not a person but a character, one whose purpose was to advance a narrative about young black men and their manifold failings. Taylor, a gifted defensive back for the Washington Redskins, had been in trouble with the law. Despite the millions he earned playing football, he never managed to escape the quicksand lure of the mean streets—parasitic friends, envious haters, a culture of casual violence. It was his decision to swim in this cesspool of dysfunction, the narrative said. And, like so many other young black men who have made the same wrong choice, he paid for it with his life."