Why bother with calling me a bitch when you can just shoot me?

There was a time when if you rebuffed a stranger's advances, if you didn't give him your phone number he would just call you a bitch and tell you that you aren't shit. And as his friends laughed at his witty response they would all walk or drive off.

Now, young Black women have to choose between some bug-a-boo calling their cell phone or risk getting shot. 18-year-old Mildred Beaubrun and her friends were getting gas and something to drink at a gas station after a night out when they came across a vehicle of animals who wanted a phone number.

"Hey, baby, what's your phone number?" they called out as the cars traveled west through Orlando.

Then the banter grew more aggressive. The men threw a T-shirt, then an AA battery, at the Nissan. One of the women threw a broken cell-phone charger back. At one point, the HHR swerved into the Nissan's lane and tried to run the car off the road.

When the Nissan turned north on John Young Parkway, the HHR followed. Then, at Princeton Street, a shot rang out. Shrapnel flew as the bullet pierced the door and struck 18-year-old Beaubrun, who was sitting in the back seat.

Now, instead of preparing to graduate from high school next month, she's lying unconscious in an Orlando hospital where doctors aren't sure if she'll live, and if she does whether she'll walk again. Mildred's two friends, who were in the car with her, are okay...physically anyway.

But I can't help but wonder how they will react and feel when another man asks them for their phone number. I can imagine the fear of entering social settings for fear they will attract the attention of the opposite sex. At such a young age, already jaded by the opposite sex (if they hadn't been already). Now, instead of the possibility of coming across a violent, dangerous lover they are made to fear all men. How sad to feel fear instead of that tingle or giddiness when a guy seems interested.

And forget the fact that these beasts haven't learned nor can they appreciate the beauty that is the male-female dance of interest and attraction. They have no respect for women and life. They are a waste of human life.

And the girl with the beautiful smile who likes to write poetry and help people is exactly where she wanted to be, but not in the circumstances she dreamed. Mildred wants to be a nurse. Now she must depend on nurses not to help her learn the craft but to save her life. All because she and her friends weren't interested in some guys.

And not a crazy, psychotic ex, but a random guy, strangers who thought they had the right to have whatever woman they wanted. In their eyes, after all, Mildred and her friends were nothing but property; they definitely weren't people (of equal standing and deserving of respect) able to make their own decisions about something as minute as giving out the phone number to the cell phone they pay for.

Can we stop defending criminals who deserve to be in jail because we don't want them to be in 'the man's system? We also have to stop saving our violent criminal sons and brothers. He's nine, so we haven't had that conversation yet, but my son will know - because I wouldn't want him to waste his phone call on me - that if he committed some violent crime, don't call me thinking my hard earned money will be used to get him out of jail.

If they will physically harass, try to drive off the road and eventually shoot a car filled with women because they wouldn't give up their phone numbers then this wasn't their first offense. That would be like a first time thief trying to steal the Constitution in broad daylight. When we don't work to get criminals out of our neighborhoods we're allowing our neighborhoods to be their hunting grounds. Working with the police does not mean you turn your eyes and outrage away from whatever injustices the police may commit. We must focus on the acts of police not only when they commit aggressive and deadly force but make sure they protect us from us.

While we're using every free moment to research presidential candidates' policies and beliefs can this be the year we pay attention to the judges and prosecutors who are on the ballots? Check out Angela J. Davis' "Arbitrary Justice: The Power of the American Prosecutor". Can we know who to vote for instead of Christmas tree-ing everything under the presidential ticket? We need people who are serious about justice, not just locking people up.

In what world are we living that I actually pray some ass calls me a bitch if I don't give him my phone number?