Violence is still a predominant issue in the inner city of Chicago. (Danny Lyon, Wikimedia Commons)

To me, the song's infectious chorus, which repeats the song's title numerous times, was an ode to life during summer break.

But I soon learned that what Cash Money was talking about wasn’t the same summer heat that Lil Wayne, Birdman and Juvenile rhymed about; Cash Money was talking about the heat of guns blazing through our communities.

Each summer since I first heard it, this song haunted me as many of my friends fell victim to violence.

The unfortunate reality of childhood in an inner city today means that children are forced to gain a knowledge of violence and death that millions would prefer they never experience. For youth today, the high odds of knowing a classmate, relative or neighbor directly affected by gun violence force them to develop defense mechanisms to either prevent violence from occurring around them or to combat it when it happens.

This behavior, sometimes depicted as criminal under the law, is in fact necessary for survival for thousands living on the front lines of a war that exists in neighborhoods throughout the country.

During the Fourth of July holiday weekend, Chicago witnessed its 200th homicide this year, with nine murders and over 20 shootings occurring within a 72-hour time period. The wounded ranged in age from five to 36-years-old. Many of the victims were outside their homes, at local parks, or simply walking through their neighborhoods during the holiday when gunshots riddled over a dozen bodies.

After more than three weekends of 20 or more violent injuries, it is clear that Chicago is a warzone, a city that lacks necessary support to end the violence that threatens its citizens. Although the Chicago Police Department insists such support is available and intact throughout Chicago, and expresses confidence in the “decrease” of city shootings, the city faces trouble.

This past holiday weekend wasn’t the only one during which Chicago witnessed numbers of wounded and killed in the double digits. Three weeks prior to the Fourth of July weekend, 46 people were shot and seven people were killed, including: Todd Wood, 40; Ricardo Herrera, 21; Kevin Rivera, 16; and Jamal Jones, 19. According to several news reports, the police assured the public that these shootings were either gang- or drug-related, and took place within Chicago's known crime spots. They also insisted that the overall rates of homicide and shootings in the city had decreased.

The overall number of shootings in the city is relevant to this discussion, but when 46 people are shot in three days within a few miles of each other, the city's overall number of shootings isn't as relevant as the rate of shootings within communities being destroyed by violence and crime.

A decrease in the city's overall number of shootings can easily be attributed to a decrease in crime in more affluent neighborhoods that are not far from Chicago’s poverty-stricken streets, and in suburban areas miles away from the inner city.

What is more relevant to this discussion is the fatal flaw in Chicago's treatment of its poorest citizens. For one thing, the protection programs that the Chicago Police Department has put in place need to be expanded.

The Sun Times reported in April 2013 that in 2012, “428 Chicago Public Schools students were shot, 40 of whom were killed.” In order to decrease this number, Chicago police officers locate students who are at high risk of being on the receiving end of violence.

The Chicago Police Department's small Gang School Safety Team Unit recommends students whose relatives have been targeted, killed and/or have received threats move to another school, move to the suburbs or move out of state. In the past three years since the safety team was started, 60 students have transferred schools and many others have moved.

This is not enough. A family cannot just pack up and move to a different city or “suburb” where the cost of living is higher than their income bracket, and change schools to which their children may no longer have transportation.

If the police department truly wants to help students in these neighborhoods, they have to be an integral part of the solution - not simply provide recommendations that students leave altogether. The police department must not always handle crime reactively, but proactively, while continuing to support students who are trying to stay away from the violence.

The Chicago Police Department has witnessed over 200 shootings this year, and over 500 last year. These shootings took place in and around the same neighborhoods. The police have done the bare minimum to shift the trajectory of violence in Chicago's communities.

The police department has undoubtedly committed time to solving crime: cleaning up crime scenes, sending coroners and additional police units to block off streets and speaking with residents about multiple shootings. They’ve filed paperwork and conducted what could be hundreds of interviews leading to multiple dead ends and a few convictions. However, when it comes to the safety and longevity of human life in these areas, the question is not who cares enough to clean up the crime scene, but who cares enough to prevent the crime scene from coming into existence.

The statistics of school violence in inner cities are staggering: 282,000 students in secondary school are attacked each month, 100,000 students bring guns to school and 28 percent of youth who carry guns have experienced violence at home.

These numbers are important because the people who have died in Chicago this year have been young, and so have their shooters. Issues of gun violence in cities like Chicago will not be solved by new legislation; the law has failed to cure the city of its pain for the past four decades. There are solutions to these problems that need to originate from understanding the cause of the violence.

For example, an increase in public funding to poverty-stricken areas will open up a host of opportunities for youth. An increase in educational programs and extracurricular activities will help to switch young peoples' attention from the streets to their own personal growth.

The environments around them are dead, and the government has the power to change that.

It is not 100 percent their responsibility, as all community members must contribute to the effort, but it is the government's responsibility to cure the heavily populated cities of America of a poverty that implies a lack of educational resources that could help to prevent violence. But this, unfortunately, is not new information.

To raise the living standards of our communities and steer thousands of people toward better jobs, higher education and closer familial connections, the culture of inner city communities must shift, too, so that we begin to take responsibility for our own. We’ve been waiting too long and lost too many, all too young, to these continuous acts of violence, and we need to do what we can to stop it.

My question is, therefore, not what can be done. Who will be willing to speak out against violence, advocate solutions, and work to put them into place? Many people surrounded by violence won't even speak out, but if they don't start to, things will never change. 

There are individuals in the U.S. government who are not only aware of the violence that plagues communities nationwide, but have also committed what they consider to be a substantial amount of time to solving these issues. But, once again, it is not enough. Clearly, we need to constantly remind ourselves and our government that for every unfixed problem, someone will die.

The violence in Chicago is not isolated. New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and other cities throughout the nation witness similar levels of inner city violence. Too often, that violence is written off as “isolated gang killings,” and people in a position to help simply exclaim, “Let them keep killing each other!” There are people who couldn't care less, who would rather watch war occur on their own soil as long as it stays out of their backyard. They need to wake up.

This summer, thousands more will begin to understand that “The Block is Hot” not with summer heat, but with gun smoke. The news media will mention a few shootings and the numbers of the dead, and those stories will disappear until another shooting happens.

There may even be a short CNN segment on the “rising death toll” in Chicago, and unfortunately another year will pass and many of those cases will go cold while America forgets they ever happened. The police and the government know this as well. We need to be there to remember.

If we're not, how will this trend of violence end? Will we ever live through a year in which 40 shootings in one weekend never happens again?

Reach Contributor Jacqueline Jackson here; follow her here.