We don't really care about dead black kids

LET'S BE HONEST: We really don't care that much about dead black kids. At the very least, let's finally own that we don't care enough.

Because if we did, would so many young - 300 in a good year, and that's just in Philly - overwhelmingly black and brown young men die with so little attention? Would we be comfortable with generations of children being wiped out with no national movement to save them?

Would we find so many reasons and excuses why we're not as outraged over their deaths as we are over Trayvon Martin's? Those others - yeah, they had a rap sheet as long as my arm, they were up to no good. The same argument has been made about Martin - from his choice of clothing to his choice of snack food - but those of us with a shred of a soul left have been able to shout them down.

Not so for the other dead kids. My God, how many times have we had this conversation before most of us just look the other way:

That's not my kid.

That's not my neighborhood.

That's not my problem.

We are nothing if not pathetically predictable, and so now, once again, we are saying we must not let Trayvon Martin's death be in vain, we must learn from this moment, we must, we must, we must. We change our profile photos on Facebook and think we've made a difference, and the wax from the protest candles barely hardens in the street before we are stepping over another dead child.

I went on a fool's errand this week. I spent a couple of days talking to family, friends, strangers on the street, professors, mothers and fathers who lost their children to urban violence - about the lack of national outrage over the steady stream of deaths, about what needs to happen to change it, about where we go from here . . . before we are here again.

They were good, honest, heart-felt conversations full of ideas and more than a little blame to go around - including some fingers pointed at the media, who anoints immortality onto a chosen few dead kids, and ignores the rest.

We talked. We debated. We brainstormed. We cried. OK, I cried, a little, out of disgust, out of pure frustration of feeling like we were all just . . . stuck.

I'd hoped I'd come away with some answer, some key, some something to make a dent into a national epidemic, our national embarrassment.

Trayvon was just the latest in a long line of deaths that gave us the opportunity for change . . . and yet, where is that change?

What's that saying, the sign of true insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome? Well, we're all crazy if we think anything will truly change if we can't channel our collective outrage into individual action.

If we don't seriously examine why we value some lives over others, if we don't, finally, call ourselves on our b.s.

Here's the thing: When we truly care, as a city, as a nation, things change because we want them to, because we demand they do. It's that simple. And that change comes from a lot more than lighting a candle, donning a hoodie or standing on a street corner with a sign.

I have no problem with all the attention Trayvon Martin's case received. It deserved every single moment in the spotlight, every word - not because this one young man's death is more valuable than others, but because in the tragic moment, it is offering us another moment get it right.

When I talked to Dorothy Johnson-Speight, founder and executive director of the anti-violence group Mothers in Charge, she acknowledged that the whole thing is overwhelming.

Johnson-Speight, whose 21-year-old son was shot and killed in 2001 over a parking spot, suggests we not think about saving 300 lives. Better, she says, we think about saving one. Mentor one kid. Give one kid a job. Save one life.

That's it. That's all I got. But maybe it's a start. And it's a whole lot better than fake, fleeting outrage.

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On Twitter: @NotesFromHel