I've recently been taken to task over my willingness to embrace violence. This prompts me to open a discussion of a situation we'll call a hypothetical.
Assume you are a white person. Not because a white person is vastly different from person in general, but in the construction of the hypothetical situation there will be people who base their actions on the color of your skin, so for the situation to make sense this is a prerequisite.
I will construct the situation piece by piece. Please be patient.
Location: a store you frequent. Corner mini-mart, drug store, whatever. Not a big supermarket; too many employees and probably too crowded (make that too many people...the bigger store means they aren't really 'crowded,' but we have to limit the overall number). 'Frequent" means just that. This isn't an auto parts store where you buy brake pads every few years when they wear out. This is a store where you buy milk, or beer, or smokes, you go there often enough that the cashiers know your brand when you say "two packs."
The players:
Undercover loss prevention specialist. This guy is a store employee. He hangs around the store in street clothes, looking for shoplifters. You know him, because you come in often enough that his "cover" just doesn't work. At some point you struck up a conversation with him, and found out you have some common interests in sports. Having someone to talk to actually makes him less obvious in his hanging around not shopping, so when you aren't in a hurry you stop and converse with him. You don't even know each other's names, but on some superficial level you might consider him a friend.
A kid. This kid is mid teens. He's been caught boosting some small thing from the store at some point. He was given a pass, but told not to come back in the store. Getting a pass was a gift, since store policy actually requires holding such miscreants and filing a police report, but with youngsters boosting small items there's a hope that a simple "scared straight" will be at least as effective and maybe more...plus, when such a miscreant has to be held for a few hours until the cops show up there's a good chance his miscreant friends came in the store with him and keeping an eye on them is more useful anyway.
Scene.
You are talking to loss prevention guy (UCLP) about <sport of choice> when he sees the kid down an aisle. He has to go after the kid. You tag along, sort of on autopilot, expecting a quick "beat it kid" and return to conversation. UCLP provides the expected dialog, something along the lines of "I told you before not to come back in the store."
Enter unexpectedly, coming around the end of the aisle, Kid's dad. His entry line is "Get away from my kid." This being pretty reasonable, UCLP steps back. At this point some sort of explanation is required. UCLP says "My apologies. I'm a store employee assigned to loss prevention. Your son and I have met before. Anything he wants to tell you about that is his business, but the result is that he isn't welcome in the store. As long as you are with him though it will be okay."
Dad's response is "I don't care, you don't talk to my kid." He's obviously agitated. Coming down off adrenaline rush of defending his kid maybe, starting to consider why his kid is banned from the store maybe and get mad at the kid, hard to tell.
UCLP seems to give him some benefit of the doubt, and apologizes again. "Sorry about that. I have a job to do so sometimes I have to talk to people in the store." At this point there seems to be nothing more to say that would be productive, and he takes a step back, putting him arms reach from you.
Dad takes backing away as backing down, and puffs up like a banty rooster. He moves quickly forward, getting close enough to speak in a low voice and be heard, and says "Swing at me <your guess is no doubt accurate> and lose your job." He looks at you, who are standing close enough to hear him clearly, with a grin that says that he fully expects you, since you are on the "right side" of a skin color equation, to have his back in whatever happens when the cops get there.
Soooooo...what is the appropriate action here?
