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