Imrem: Jabari Parker, thank you

This column was updated and corrected to note that Elvis Presley died 39 years ago in 1977.

Elvis Presley died 39 years ago Tuesday and not much has changed for the better "In the Ghetto" since then.

Way back in 1969, Elvis sang these Mac Davis lyrics:

"People, don't you understand, the child needs a helping hand or he'll grow to be an angry young man some day? … Take a look at you and me, are we too blind to see, do we simply turn our heads and look the other way?"

Jabari Parker, a basketball star from Chicago, isn't turning his head or looking the other way.

Not judging by the 3,000 words he wrote for The Players' Tribune website on Monday, when it was needed the most.

That morning a radio report was enough to break all hearts and shatter any optimism: The weekend body count in Chicago was nine dead and 40 wounded.

Every one of these reports is depressing, but this one seemed more so because of the sudden sense of sameness.

The news was delivered matter-of-factly, then gave way to silly presidential politics and frivolous sports scores.

I don't want to dramatize my frustration over the carnage because, to be honest, I don't dwell enough on doing something about it.

I'm so many decades removed from growing up in the city and attending Chicago Public Schools that I'm like many out here now … encased in a safe, secure, suburban cocoon.

But the city is at the core of my being, of who and what I am, of what I do. It's a pain in the gut whenever I allow myself to think about what's going on in there now.

Any encouragement that something can be done about this unnatural urban disaster might as well be buried with nine more, or however many more, victims after any given weekend.

Most frightening early Monday morning was that the high number of deaths had reached the point of being taken for granted.

Nothing can be done anyway because the problem is so complex, right?

Social, political and economic factors prevail, like drugs, guns and the broken family unit.

Still, please, hope must remain that the predicament isn't hopeless.

Enter Jabari Parker.

The former Simeon high school player and Duke college player and current NBA player helped douse the despair.

"Everybody in Chicago needs to do more for these kids and our city," Jabari wrote on The Players' Tribune.

It's so easy for athletes who escape the South Side and West Side and come upon big money … so easy for them to leave their neighbors behind.

It's dangerous in there. Visitors are in jeopardy. Innocent bystanders are gunned down.

But athletes can do so much good. They can preach a better way. People who worship them will listen to them.

As Parker wrote, "It's something that Jahlil Okafor and I talk about all the time. He's a Chicago kid, too (although he went to a school with nice books). We say to each other, 'We gotta surprise people. We need to do something.' "

Parker wants to be to youngsters what his father and a particularly influential teacher were to him.

So Parker conducts a basketball camp for Chicago kids. Among other benefits, it demonstrates that somebody cares about them.

Jabari Parker won't solve the problem. He might not even save one person's life.

But at least he's refusing to pass over all the radio reports about all those people dying "In the Ghetto."

mimrem@dailyherald.com