Black lives matter has been a trending topic, a hash tag, a slogan on t-shirts and hoodies since 2013. We saw them at protests and marches for Sandra Bland, Laquan McDonald, Eric Garner Treyvon Martin, Mike Brown and many other black lives lost to violence by the police. I live in Chicago where to date : 01/11/16 125 people have been shot, 20 fatally to start the new year. Two teens 15 and 17 were killed by a liquor store owner when they tried to rob the liquor store at gun point. The picture of their bodies laid out on the floor in the store has been posted on social media since the night it happened. I haven’t seen one march, one protest over their murder. I don’t expect picket signs outside of the liquor store because the owner acted in self defense. Where are the protest, where are the marches in the neighborhood where they were from to protest our youths being raised to take the easy way out.  Risking their lives over the possibility of a few hundred dollars in a cash register. Two other teens were murdered in a drive by a few days prior. One of the victims posted pictures and videos on his Facebook page waving guns and throwing down gang signs. Yet today I have not seen one march, or one protest over their murders.  We as black people are like ostriches with our heads in the sand when it comes to black on black crime  watching our youth throw their lives away. How can we get mad at the police when they kill one of our sons, daughters,  mothers, fathers, sisters, or brothers but we turn our heads when WE kill one another? How can we expect the police to respect our lives when they watch us kill each other on a daily basis? We have to do better as black people, as a community and get outraged over what we are doing to each other instead of only coming together when it’s a police involved killing.This is not the promised land Dr. King saw from the mountain top. My grandma would say, ” Dr. King is probably turning over in his grave,” every time we kill each other over Jordans, gang affiliations, Facebook arguments. Our youths are throwing their lives away over a few dollars or over neighborhood recognition for being a so called gangsta. We can’t be numb to the violence we do onto each other but ready to riot when the police use excessive force or are trigger happy when they interact with us. Government statistics show that 93% of black murder victims were murdered by other blacks. How dare we march and protest over 7% but remain silent over the other 93%? So until the 93% of the black lives lost to violence by other blacks matter to us then we can’t expect the world to care about the other 7%!

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