Blackout: Stand Your Ground by Shan, David Weaver

“We the jury find the defendant, George Zimmerman; not guilty.”
     

     
      The words echoed through Jawan’s small home as if someone had thumped a seashell. Not guilty. Jawan’s eyes turned red as he stared at his television with eyes wide shut. He was there, but not there. He was light-headed, but blacked out simultaneously.
     

     
      Meesie stared at her man nervously. She knew how hard he had been following Trayvon’s case, and how strongly he felt about the incidents that had occurred. She knew that his father had been killed some years ago by a white man, and that this particular case; although different, had many similarities. Her hands started sweating and her knees started shaking while trying to gauge what he was about to do. Finally, unable to take the mounting tension; she stood up and walked out of the living room silently.
     

     
      Jawan stared at the television screen without blinking. Tears wrapped around his eyes as if they had been laminated. His forehead started sweating and evil thoughts raced through his mind effortlessly. He had done everything in his power to put faith in the United States’ justice system, but he’d finally saw things the way he always knew they were. There was no justice for people like him.
     

     
      He had never been a bad person. He didn’t smoke or drink, didn’t hang in the streets, and didn’t have a thing for violence; hell he didn’t even care for rap music or fancy rims. Although he didn’t care about the typical things, the one thing he did care about was equal rights.
     

     
      He glanced at the newspaper clippings on his living room wall. A clipping of his deceased father, who was killed trying to deliver a newspaper, was posted above his television. He thought back to how it happened and a tear fell from his eyes and absorbed into his cheap carpet.
     

     
      His father had left for work one day and never returned. He remembered staring into his mother’s burning sadness as she tried her best to tell him what happened. His father had been killed for nothing. It had taken place when he was 14 years old, almost ten years ago to the date; and no matter how much he tried to suppress it, there were always going to be situations that reminded him just how much his skin tone was hated.
     

     
      He gently placed the remote on the coffee table and walked outside in a trance. He stood on the porch of his single family home and stared at the crowd outside in disbelief.   There was a crowd of black men gathered, but he was soon to learn that the crowd was for the wrong reason. One guy mentioned the Trayvon verdict, and another guy responded; saying “He gon ’ get his bruh .”
     

     
      And that was it. They pulled out dice and started their weekly Saturday night dice game as if nothing had happened. Jawan felt his heart skip a beat as he watched the same people who spoke of rioting, gamble their night away. Anger shot through him like lightning as he stomped back into his house. He went into the bedroom and pulled out the bottom drawer. Sitting on the floor underneath it was a black Glock 40 and a box of ammunition. He picked the gun up and tucked it between his belt and his body, and then placed the ammo in his pocket.
     

     
      Meesie jumped up off of the bed alarmed by what Jawan had just done. “Baby, come here please! Come here and talk to me!”
     

     
      Jawan stopped in the doorway and took a deep breath as he listened to his fiancé plead with him. He loved her dearly, and he always wanted to show her the same level of respect that she had shown him. “Please put the gun back Jawan . You remember when you first got the gun….” She started, as she came over closer to him.
     

     
      “You remember when you first got the gun… I asked you why you would buy the same gun that was used to kill your father? I asked you that Jawan , and you answered me. Do you remember what you told me?”
     

     
      Jawan turned around