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I’m weary of writing about young Black boys being gunned down by young Black men.

There’s a $20,000 reward for information leading to the killer of Tyshawn Lee, a nine-year-old boy who was shot multiple times Monday and died in a Chicago alley.

Nine years old. He was just a child.

So this is what’s come to: We need financial rewards to encourage our own people to help stop the killings of our own people. How do we change a Black gangster culture where Black lives don’t matter?

Where is the outrage? Where is the anger? Where is the indignation? Was Tyshawn caught in a crossfire? Did the killer shoot the boy intentionally?

We don’t know all the answers. We do know this: far too many young Black men –and children– are being gunned down on the streets of Chicago, and throughout this country, and it seems like our community is far too silent or far too numb.

“This was the execution of a baby,” Rev. Michael Pfleger, a Chicago minister, told CNN Monday. “When are we going to have the courage to eradicate this violence?”

Good question.

When a white police office shoots an unarmed Black man to death, Black folks will march in the streets for weeks, and I’ll write columns for several days running, but where are the marches for Tyshawn Lee? Where are the protestors?

Members of ‘Black Lives Matter’ disrupted Hillary Clinton’s rally in Atlanta last week and appeared outraged on CNN, but I didn’t see that same sense of collective outrage over Tyshawn’s shooting on Monday.

As a community, sometimes we have misplaced priorities. I have written numerous columns – too many to count – about racial profiling, excessive use of force by white police officers, and the ongoing injustice – and murders – of unarmed Black men at the hands of white cops.

But today, young Black men are killing each other at an alarming rate – and our children are being gunned down in the prime of their lives and yet it’s as if this is our new normal.

Black Lives Matter In The Streets Of Chicago, Too…Or Do They?  was originally published on blackamericaweb.com

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