St. Petersburg Times columnist Bill Maxwell recently wrote a column to talk about Washington Redskins free safety Sean Taylor, who died Nov. 27 after being shot the day before during an apparent burglary attempt in his Miami home. Click here to read article.

Maxwell expressed dismay that some black journalists, particularly sportswriters, seemed more concerned that the coverage of Taylor's death would focus more on the negative events from Taylor's past rather than his current day successes. To Maxwell, you could not discuss Taylor's death without acknowledging the elephant in the room.

Maxwell explained,

We reject the truth, but here it is: Because of the regularity at which black men kill one another, we virtually have become inured to all but the deaths of the rich and famous at the hands of another black male, a la Sean Taylor.

We have devalued our lives. We do not respect one another. In fact, dissing is expected. Our very existence is cheap. Violence against one another has become our way of life, how we solve our problems. I have said it before and I will say it again - we have been cruel toward one another for so long that we have internalized the belief that being cruel to one another is normal. Cruelty should not be accepted as normal.

Maxwell pleads with his readers that a new game plan is needed to address the challenges Taylor's death brought once again into the spotlight and ends his column with the following words,

"The carnage of black-on-black violence is a real threat to any hope of a viable future for black America. Such carnage is not a journalistic debate between white and black writers. It is a frightening reality."

Do you agree or disagree with Maxwell's view? What do you think should be done to stop the epidemic of black-on-black violence?

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