If President Obama had a son, he might look like Amari Brown, the little boy killed by a bullet intended for his gang-banger father on the streets of President Obama’s Chicago in yet another bloody Windy City weekend. As the Chicago Tribune reported, over the Fourth of July weekend, Amari Brown was one of the ten that were killed among 55 that were shot, none attributed to Confederate flag loyalists:

Among those killed was 7-year-old Amari Brown, shot in the chest as he watched fireworks near his father's home in Humboldt Park late Saturday night.  Police say they believe the attack was aimed at the father, whom they described as a ranking gang member.

Also gunned down was 17-year-old Vonzell Banks, who was shot as he played basketball Friday at a park named for Hadiya Pendleton, a high school student fatally shot in 2013 near President Barack Obama's Chicago home.

The wounded included a 16-year-old boy and a 15-year-old girl shot shortly after midnight Sunday as they walked in Old Town, and a 19-year-old man shot around 10 p.m. Saturday as two groups fought near Navy Pier after the fireworks display there.

We are told that black lives matter, but apparently only those that can be blamed on rogue white cops or the occasional loony tune inspired by admirers of the Confederate flag. Trayon Martin matters, President Obama’s first imaginary son, who turned to confront neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman instead of just continuing on home. 

Michael Brown matters, the thug who committed a strong-armed robbery of a convenience store and then assaulted a police officer, trying to kill him with his own gun. The rush to judgment false narrative inspired the “hands up, don’t shoot” false mantra endlessly repeated by those determined to perpetuate black victimhood and white guilt.

Chicago Police Commissioner Gary McCarthy got it right when he observed that Amari Brown was another victim, , not of racism, but of gang violence and a revolving door justice system:

Antonio Brown, who police say is a ranking member of the Four Corner Hustlers street gang, has been arrested 45 times on charges ranging from gun possession to burglary, and is not cooperating with detectives in their investigation into the slaying of his son, Amari Brown, police said.

McCarthy said that the elder Brown's last arrest was in April for gun possession after leading police on a vehicle pursuit. Brown was later released on bail in that case, Cook County court records show.

"If Mr. Brown is in custody, his son is alive," McCarthy, flanked by several police officials and other officers, told a room full of reporters at the Harrison District police station on the West Side on Sunday afternoon. "That's not the case. Quite frankly, he shouldn't have been on the street."

Indeed, he should not have been on the streets of Chicago to murder little Amari Brown. Jesse Jackson, sometimes reverend and full-time poster child for the racial grievance industry, was not in Chicago following the bloody weekend, but in Columbia, South Carolina, to observe the vote on the removal of the Confederate flag from state grounds:

The Rev. Jesse Jackson was in Columbia Tuesday as the South Carolina Senate was expected to return to the Statehouse for a final vote on a bill to remove to Confederate flag from Statehouse grounds….

Jackson, who is originally from Greenville, said General Robert E. Lee surrendered the true Confederate battle flag was surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant in 1865, at the end of the Civil War.

The current flag, Jackson said, went up to try to stop desegregation and Jackson said the banner should come down so state leaders could move forward and devote their attention to other problems in the state.

The tragic mass shooting that took place at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in downtown Charleston is a tragedy we should all mourn. But similar carnage is a weekly event in Jackson’s and Obama’s Chicago where there’s a Trayvon Martin every day. As Investor’s Business Daily noted, young Demario Bailey’s life mattered too:

If President Obama had a son, he might look like 15-year-old Demario Bailey, one of three killed and 30 wounded in a typical Chicago weekend by thugs who wanted his Bulls jacket.

As Bailey was being murdered while walking with his twin brother to a school basketball game, protestors of police brutality marched down Chicago's ritzy Michigan Avenue. They told high-end shoppers there that "black lives matter," held up their hands and said "don't shoot," and wore shirts that proclaimed "I can't breathe." The protest was part of a series of demonstrations also being held in Washington, New York, Boston and California.

"We're going to keep the light on Mike Brown .. . on all the victims. The only way you make roaches run is to keep the lights on," said Al Sharpton, who will not be attending Demario's funeral due to scheduling conflicts, and whose National Action Network organized the Washington rally.

Demario Bailey’s life mattered as much as Trayon Martin’s. Amari Brown’s life mattered as much as Michael Brown’s. Yet neither was the subject of much national angst or traceable to admirers of the Confederate flag. We indeed need to move beyond the cause célèbre of the Confederate flag and address other problems such as the legacy, not of slavery but of the Great Society government paternalism that destroyed the black family, spawned fatherlessness and illegitimacy, kept black kids trapped in failing inner city schools as their cities decayed under decades of Democratic rule.

Democrats gave us the Confederate flag just as they gave us Jim Crow laws, stood in the schoolhouse door, blocked the Selma bridge, and unleashed the fire hoses and the dogs. We need to focus on the daily Chicagos and not just the occasional Charleston.

Daniel John Sobieski is a free lance writer whose pieces have appeared in Investor’s Business Daily, Human Events, Reason Magazine and the Chicago Sun-Times among other publications.