Stand your ground.

It's one of those days where it's not hot and its not cold.  It may rain but you never know.  However I know I feel like a cup of coffee.  So I decide I will go to the neighborhood coffee house and read some news.  This isn't as easy as it sounds.  Coffee houses are such a fashion scene you just can't show up.  I had to find the right outfit for hanging at the bucks. I put on an old faded jeans, a plain v neck tee and for “ I am not to old to be hip statement"  a hoodie.  To be honest I am trying too hard to fit in the young crowd.  We all have our insecurities. 
Then comes the biggest hurdle.  How to get to the coffee shop.  It's a bit of a walk but I would prefer to drive.  However I don't have an electric car and if the hip people at the coffee shop found out I drove here it would ruin my street cred with the "in"  save the world crowd who drink bottle water.  If I was a comedian I wouldn't have this problem.  Jerry Seinfeld would probably pick me up in an expensive car and buy me coffee. http://comediansincarsgettingcoffee.com.  So walk it is.

Just as I am leaving the house it occurs to me, I am not white.  I am going to walk thru a mostly white suburb in a hoodie?  That in America in 2013 is as dangerous as living in Chicago under mayor Emmanuel.  Now I have never been a hunter, never felt threatened and since my parents moved me from Africa I have lived in a society with law and order.  Still the insecure, irrational me bought a handgun.  Because someday I might want to shoot someone. Why else would anyone own a gun? Duh!

So off I went to the coffee shop.  I felt like a man walking in my hoodie thru a suburb packing heat.  I might have had a hard on.  Almost shot a housewife watering her lawn.  I thought for a second she was pointing the hose at me.  Lucky for her I am not easily threatened and also I wasn't sure stand your ground would hold up in this scenario.

So I get to the coffee house, order a latte with soya, no fat, no sugar,fat free chocolate.  Sit down and nod at all the cool people on their laptops.  I wish I had a laptop to surf porn.  As I am drinking my whatever this shit is that cost the equivalent of a meal at a fast food place, I see George Zimmerman across the room.  Now a flood of emotions comes rushing into me.  This guy killed an innocent man.  He took another life. He put himself in a position he could have avoided.  One he should have avoided.  What value did he have for life?  The value of property was worth more than a life based on a chance this man could be a thief. I was getting angry.  I was about to go confront him and then terror struck me!
Oh my god!  If I go there and say something....oh shit I am wearing a hoodie!  I am non white. I am holding skittles.  This is George Zimmerman!  My life flashed before my eyes.  I just pulled my gun out and shot him.  He probably never even saw me.  Whew I had survived. 

I knew the law and the people who supported George Zimmerman would stand behind me.  Even thou I am not white, and am a Muslim.  This was not about race!  This was stand your ground!  Here I was wearing a hoodie, holding skittles and an armed man with a history of killing such people was in front of me.  My life was in danger. I did what any sane gun owning individual would do.  I shot him before he could shoot me.  Now some of those people who were for Mr. MARTIN might say, he was just sitting there having coffee, (ie why get out of the car) but he was in my coffee shop in my neighborhood and I knew at that moment in time my life was in danger.

In 2013 in America the greatest nation on earth.  The most civilized of them all,  a citizen can shoot another to protect himself based on perception and profiling.