Marcellus Wiley’s Response To Jason Whitlock’s Sean Taylor Piece

Maikeru-sama

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Sean Taylor WILL Rest in Peace!!!

I thought it was impossible to kill the dead…

The loss of a human being, father, son, boyfriend, teammate, and friend should make any heart-beating homo sapien reflect on their own mortality and thank God for the blessing and gift that accompanies every breath of life. Underlining these humbling moments of reflection on the deceased should be offerings of sympathy, honor, and homage for the victim. All of us must be respectfully cognizant of the family that has to live with an irreplaceable void in their lives and hearts.

Despite an individual’s heights or shortcomings; people traveling down the road of life need to always respect other passengers on the road. Respect should especially be given to those who have crossed their destiny’s finite finish line. To mentally use a highlighter in hindsight to solely show previous indiscretions in search of judicial direction or public understanding during a time of remorse and healing throws a lower blow than Andrew Golota, to say the least.

Unfortunately, this week I have witnessed such heartless acts being woven into the reporting of the Sean Taylor slaying. Before pertinent details and facts began to unfold, some of the most trusted members of the media intellect decided to give a post-game report on one human beings life. To attempt to sum up his life with accolades, achievements, and police reports is as senseless as saying you saw the Super Bowl when truly you only read the newspaper the next day. Jason Whitlock of FoxSports.com lead this charge into an abyss of mystery and speculation, solely supported on rap sheets and insensitive opinions. Opinions that attempted to correlate the KKK with the social ills that are creeping into our professional sports culture. Do you hear of a CEO’s death from lung cancer and immediately tally up the number of cigarettes they inhaled over their shortened life in condemnation, before they are buried? Despite the glaring correlation, the absence of tact in this style of reporting is more striking than the enlightenment and judgment you strive to receive from the reader and/or viewer.

No more negative attention should be mis-appropriately placed on another victim, especially one apart of my professional sports fraternity. I will not partake in it. That will be left up to the reporters who stress fame first and facts second, shock value before sensitivity.

My question is why inject that lack of compassion into this arena, at this time…in the hopes of waking up Black America?

I was described by Whitlock as ’singing the tune’ when I mentioned on Espn’s First Take and the Mike Tirico radio show that “athletes are targets”. Without knowledge of the facts of Seans’ particular case mounting in support of my argument, I made the statement based on the intelligence of being a 10-year veteran of the NFL. I have not only studied my sport in regards to the X’s & O’s, but more valuably, I lived in it! I didn’t need to interview sources to state the facts of the sports culture and the ills that surround and permeates through it. My only homework needed was recollection.

So it deeply troubles me when speculation motives in sensationalism in regards to the sport and the people that are members of my fraternity. Simply stated, it collides directly with my life and my circle of concern.

Sports were a means to an end for many of the players we currently celebrate nightly on Sportscenter. Being born in Compton and raised in inner-city Los Angeles, I’ve lived a first-hand perspective of the subtractions that gangs, poverty, drugs, and violence has on the human race AND black culture. Oh yeah, back then they called us “Boyz-n-the Hood”.

Sean Taylor is not the first football player that I have played against that has died by the hands of another person. Sadly, I’ve had teammates miss seasons in the past, and not because of injury, but because of their own death. Murdered! I’ve personally had to lay terrified on an open grass field for a half an hour before one of my football games during warm-ups while the spray of bullets came to a halt. How should I rationalize this? A wise-woman once told me, “You can’t make sense out of non-sense.”

So the attempts in correlation of Seans’ past and this incident seemed to me untimely. If you thought you were going to solve his murder by reading off his misdemeanors or felonies over a loudspeaker for the crowd of public court to jeer, we’ve all been proven assumingly wrong. This case has sadly turned out to be an armed-robbery gone tragically wrong. It was committed by four youths, who in a flash turned Sean Taylor from a hard-hitting safety into a homicide victim. And they weren’t the haunting ghosts from his ‘criminal past’ that everyone feared. Instead, these young kids’ mal-intentions placed a bulls-eye on Sean’s success, wealth, assets, and absence from home. Yes, he was a target!

I guess Whitlock is right. Taylor’s death, like his news headline stated, is “a grim reminder for us all”. Yeah, it’s a reminder all right. It reminds me that not only are there villains in this world who unfortunately put their energy into destruction, but there are also still people who are thoughtless enough to destroy the lives of the living and memory of the deceased with an inept justification such as a checkered past, a zip code of residency, or a skin color.

But, since I’ve been avoiding the so-called ‘Black KKK’ for 33 years, and not just reporting on it, please, please keep the reminders to yourself next time! Trust me, I would much rather report and read about the life of the glass that’s half FULL. The Taylor family and I both agree that the EMPTY glass reminders are too painful!

Respectfully,

One of the Boyz-n-the-Hood! (…Now called Soulja Boys)

Rest in Peace Sean….and my prayers go to all you’ve touched in your life,
myself included.

Marcellus Wiley
Columbia University CC’ 97
All-Pro Defensive End 1997-2006
Espn NFL Analyst
 

Maikeru-sama

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He was just on Mike and Mike discussing the incident, Whitlock's article and his subsequent rebuttal.

I think he was personally offended by Whitlock personally criticizing him for speaking out after Taylor's death.

Whitlock >>>>> :spanking: Wiley <<<<<
 

superpunk

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Marcellus isn't that great of a writer, but it's a good article. ;)

Whitlock's article had some decent points, but they were ill-timed and misplaced, clearly. As were all those posts bowing to Whitlock's courageous use of this arena to get his self-loathing black-man agenda out there. As were all the ill-timed reminders from certain people that Taylor's past was less than sparkly, and somehow contributed his demise, despite no supporting facts.

No more negative attention should be mis-appropriately placed on another victim, especially one apart of my professional sports fraternity. I will not partake in it. That will be left up to the reporters who stress fame first and facts second, shock value before sensitivity.

Good take by Wiley.
 

dfense

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Marcellus Wiley
Columbia University CC&#8217; 97
All-Pro Defensive End 1997-2006
Espn NFL Analyst
__________________Wiley should alter that All-Pro tag so his years in Dallas don't reflect there. When you don't get any sacks, All-Pro doesn't fit too well.
 

WoodysGirl

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superpunk;1814563 said:
Marcellus isn't that great of a writer, but it's a good article. ;)
For a first effort, it's not bad. Clearly, he doesn't have any journalism training and since it's an op-ed piece, he's being given a lot more latitude than a traditional reporter's piece.

Hopefully, his editors will take a broader pen to his work in the future.

As far as his ability as an analyst, I'll have to check him out. He cut his chops in the early days of the NFL Network. He was ok. I expect Dhani Jones to be on TV following the end of his career too.
 

superpunk

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WoodysGirl;1814585 said:
For a first effort, it's not bad. Clearly, he doesn't have any journalism training and since it's an op-ed piece, he's being given a lot more latitude than a traditional reporter's piece.

Pretty sure I've seen numerous pieces from him before. It was a good article, I just thought he got carried away with "important-sounding" words.

Hopefully, his editors will take a broader pen to his work in the future.

As far as his ability as an analyst, I'll have to check him out. He cut his chops in the early days of the NFL Network. He was ok. I expect Dhani Jones to be on TV following the end of his career too.

Yes. TV needs more bow-ties. Dhani and Bill Nye can be on TV together, and maybe start an air-ukelele band.
 

WoodysGirl

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superpunk;1814593 said:
Pretty sure I've seen numerous pieces from him before. It was a good article, I just thought he got carried away with "important-sounding" words.
Funny, this is my first time reading something by him.

I think with this article, he took the Tiki Barber route. "I went to an Ivy league school and I need to show that so you do think I'm a dumb jock"

Hopefully someone will tell him that journalists don't fill copy with "smart" words and the K.I.S.S. method will be used more often than not.



Yes. TV needs more bow-ties. Dhani and Bill Nye can be on TV together, and maybe start an air-ukelele band.
:laugh2:
 

Maikeru-sama

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WoodysGirl;1814585 said:
Hopefully, his editors will take a broader pen to his work in the future.

I believe Wiley stated that he originally posted this on a Blog.

Link

If he intends to write more, hopefully he doesn't limit himself to just Black Issues like Jason Whitlock.

Gawd knows we don't need more of those types.
 

Chocolate Lab

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I'm white, so I'm probably not even allowed to comment on this.

But it seems to me that his article, like most of his, were about the whole glorification of violence that goes with the "gangsta" lifestyle. So why wouldn't it still apply to the thugs who killed Taylor?

I've read many of his pieces, and they don't seem self-loathing at all. He's saying that there's a problem in the community, and people need to face it and do something about it rather than getting defensive and sweeping it under the rug. Yet that's exactly what Wiley seems to want to do.

So again... What's wrong with what Whitlock writes?

And on another note: Please, please don't put Dhani Jones on my TV set...
 

superpunk

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Chocolate Lab;1814608 said:
I'm white, so I'm probably not even allowed to comment on this.

But it seems to me that his article, like most of his, were about the whole glorification of violence that goes with the "gangsta" lifestyle. So why wouldn't it still apply to the thugs who killed Taylor?

I've read many of his pieces, and they don't seem self-loathing at all. He's saying that there's a problem in the community, and people need to face it and do something about it rather than getting defensive and sweeping it under the rug. Yet that's exactly what Wiley seems to want to do.

So again... What's wrong with what Whitlock writes?

And on another note: Please, please don't put Dhani Jones on my TV set...

IMO, Whitlock attempted to blame hip-hop, and black athlete's desires to live the "hip-hop lifestyle", stay hood, blah blah blah for crimes like this. He also commits the fallacy of thinking that hip-hop inspires violence and crime rather than the other way around. Whitlock attempted to put that on Taylor's plate, rather than taking it for what it was - a senseless act of violence by some ******** teens. It wasn't about race, or hip-hop, or gangsta rap. It was about some thieves (thievery, I believe, precedes the conception of hip-hop) looking to score off an athlete's success, and then shooting him when he attempted to defend his family.

Whitlock's piece had a premise - but it was misapplied to Taylor's situation.
 

burmafrd

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Super, do you really think that hip hop and gangsta rap DOES NOT HAVE an effect on kids?
 

el_chevo

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Funny how many people in this forum seem to forget that material produced for consumption by the general public has been intentionally written for sixth-graders.
 

superpunk

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burmafrd;1814642 said:
Super, do you really think that hip hop and gangsta rap DOES NOT HAVE an effect on kids?

Yes. I really think THAT. I love gansta rap, and LOOK AT me. I'm pretty much perfect.






seriously...where do you come up with this stuff?
 

Maikeru-sama

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burmafrd;1814642 said:
Super, do you really think that hip hop and gangsta rap DOES NOT HAVE an effect on kids?

Why sure. Who wants to constantly hear idiots branging about how much money they have, who they are going to kill and the many women they have slept with.

With that said, it is no different than Video Games, Violent Movies and 24 hour news networks that sensationalize Mall, School and Work Shootings.

You don't see too many articles decrying these mediums though.

Hip Hop is easy to blame and as I stated many times, it is used as a "Code Word" many times.

America and the World in general was and will probably always be a violent place, and it certainly was like that before Gangsta Rap.
 

Maikeru-sama

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Chocolate Lab;1814608 said:
I'm white, so I'm probably not even allowed to comment on this.

But it seems to me that his article, like most of his, were about the whole glorification of violence that goes with the "gangsta" lifestyle. So why wouldn't it still apply to the thugs who killed Taylor?

I've read many of his pieces, and they don't seem self-loathing at all. He's saying that there's a problem in the community, and people need to face it and do something about it rather than getting defensive and sweeping it under the rug. Yet that's exactly what Wiley seems to want to do.

So again... What's wrong with what Whitlock writes?

And on another note: Please, please don't put Dhani Jones on my TV set...


This is a good post. Before I respond, I would like to say that you are entitled to speak on any topic no matter what your race is.

I think what irks most minorities, mainly blacks is that it seems like when a high profile Black person gets killed, you have alot of articles and pundits come out and say the Black Culture as a whole needs to take a step back and re-evaluate our morals.

As a Black person, why do I need to re-examine myself just because some Black person was killed by another Black person? I am pretty sure Michael Vick and Sean Taylor have nothing to do with me.

You do not see these kind of articles when a non-black kills another non-black.

It is presumptuous and reeks of ignorance and racism IMO.
 

superpunk

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burmafrd;1814669 said:
I think it makes things worse.

Does hip-hop and rap inspire life? Or is hip-hop and rap inspired by life?

I think if Neil Young had grown up in the neighborhood, watching drugs being dealt, people being shot, and women turning into "hoes", he'd have ended up writing about that, too.
 

Big Country

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superpunk;1814686 said:
Does hip-hop and rap inspire life? Or is hip-hop and rap inspired by life?

I think if Neil Young had grown up in the neighborhood, watching drugs being dealt, people being shot, and women turning into "hoes", he'd have ended up writing about that, too.

fine correlation...

you are what you consume, mentally or physically
 

sacase

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burmafrd;1814642 said:
Super, do you really think that hip hop and gangsta rap DOES NOT HAVE an effect on kids?

This kind of stuff has gone on long before hip hop, especially in the black community. Hip hop has just brought it to the light of day. So no, I don't blame the music, I blame the people.

I hate even calling the music hip hop because it is not even close.
 
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