Athletes Must Help Stop the Madness

"The passenger pulled out a semiautomatic and I knew what time it was. But he said, 'Oh, that's Michael Irvin, with the Dallas Cowboys.' So we started talking about the Cowboys and everything. Then they got back on the highway."

A couple years ago, Denver Broncos defensive back Darrent Williams wasn't so lucky to be recognized by a gunman who rolled up on a Hummer limousine he was riding in. They opened fire. Killed him. He was 24.

These are anecdotes that pro athletes trot out as to why they feel a need to hit the streets strapped, as Plaxico Burress infamously did just after last Thanksgiving. He wound up shooting himself in the leg while at a club with a gun he wasn't licensed to carry. Lucky for everyone in the club he didn't accidentally shoot them too.

The reaction these guys, especially black athletes, should have to these tales is to put their guns down and be role models who encourage everyone else -- especially their younger brethren like the would-be stick-up punks who Irvin claimed rolled up on him -- to put their guns down too. Instead, we get more stories like that about Colts' receiver Marvin Harrison, who is lucky so far to be dodging an investigation in Philadelphia that he was seen waving a gun last April before a shooting that left three people wounded.

Gun violence is the No. 1 cause of death for black males in this country in the age span that star black athletes make up, from their late teens to early 30s. Further, while gun deaths have been trending downward in our country for several years now, a study from Northeastern University released just before the New Year showed that gun homicides involving black youths surged by more than 30 percent during a five-year period starting in 2002.
Whatever happened to the spirit of community responsibility that KRS One and other black hip-hop artists rapped about in that late 80's ditty Self-Destruction:

Well, today's topic, self destruction
It really ain't the rap audience that's buggin
It's one or two suckas, ignorant brothers
Trying to rob and steal from one another
You get caught in the mid
So to crush the stereotype here's what we did
We got ourselves together
So that you could unite and fight for what's right
Not negative 'cause the way we live is positive
We don't kill our relatives

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