Rachel Jeantel (1994- ), a friend of Trayvon Martin, was on the phone with him on February 26th 2012 when Martin’s fight with George Zimmerman began. The phone call went dead just a minute before Zimmerman shot him dead. She was one of the main witnesses at the Zimmerman murder trial in 2013.
According to her Martin told her that a “creepy-ass cracka” in a car was watching him and following him. Martin tried to lose him by going by a back way, away from the street. Zimmerman got out of his car and followed. Then:
Martin: (to Jeantel) Oh shit, the nigga is behind me.
Martin: (to Zimmerman) What you following me for?
Zimmerman: (breathing hard) What you doing around here?*bump*
*wet grass sounds*Martin: Get off. Get off.
The phone call goes dead. She calls back. No answer.
From the 911 tapes we know that right after that were screams for help cut short by a gun shot.
Race: She says that if Martin were white he would still be alive.
Don West cross-examined her for five and a half hours over two days.
West tried to create doubt about her testimony by comparing it with the other four times she told the story. The main difference is that when she first told it at length she lied about why she did not go to the Martin’s wake and cleaned up Martin’s words (no “nigga” or “cracka”) – because at the time Martin’s grief-stricken mother was sitting right next to her, tears in her eyes.
A test of wills: Jeantel says West was disrespectful. She was kind of surprised by that, but kept her cool. She thinks West was trying to get her to blow up on the stand so he could paint Martin as angry and violent.
For example:
West: Are you claiming in any way that you don’t understand English?
Jeantel: I don’t understand you, I do understand English.
West: When someone speaks to you in English, do you believe you have any difficulty understanding it because it wasn’t your first language?
Jeantel: I understand English really well.
There is no honest reason to ask that question – not after hours of cross-examination.
Jeantel’s English: After the trial CNN asked one of the jurors:
CNN: Did you find it hard at times to understand what she was saying?
Juror B37: A lot of the times because a lot of the time she was (pause) using phrases I have never heard before, and what they meant.
Juror B37 said Jeantel lacked “communication skills”. In fact, Jeantel speaks three languages. Her English was not the Queen’s English, but it was certainly understandable.
Linguist John McWhorter says she spoke perfect Black English. He says non-blacks over age 50 might have trouble understanding her.
After the testimony was over, West’s daughter Molly posted a picture on the Internet of her eating ice cream cones with her father and sister. Under the picture she wrote:
We beat stupidity celebration cones. … #zimmerman #defense #dadkilledit.
West apologized.
See also:
- Juror B37
- What did race have to do with the George Zimmerman case?
- Zimmerman Murder Trial, Day 6 – where Zimmerman’s side of the story is presented
- cracka
- Black English
When i watched the piers Morgan interview with Rachel Jeantel, every time the camera, zoomed into a white persons face, it showed disdain and disgust.
Black people, should not talk to the white media at ALL! they are not trying to get our part of the story, nor do they care about our struggles, they only use black people, to get ratings and nothing more.
I did notice that Rachel Jeantel, wasn’t very articulate but that should have been a none factor in determining, whether she is credible or not.
Rachel Jeantel is a easy target for the media to attack and use as an example to judge all black people.
What it comes down too is this, blacks are not capable of giving a positive witness to another black person and it be taken, face value.
Some have said in response to, “black people can’t or won’t convict a black defendant”, that a white person can’t and will not convict a white person but the fact is that we are never in a position to see if that would be the case or not, being there is ALWAYS a white person on a jury and almost never a black person on a jury.
This is especially true if there are racial elements in which, a black and white person are in the equation, there is a conscious effort to make sure, there are no black jurors and all white jurors or at least one token black juror or other minority, just to make it look like there is some sort of, racial diversity.
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First to comment on this thread. ^_^
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One of the jurors implied Rachel was uneducated. Rachel has a lisp, speaks with a Black southern accent and takes her time answering questions. None of that spells uneducated. I would say that juror is uneducated though, and certainly racist.
Why doesn’t the jury selection process screen for prejudice, racism and xenophobia?
Why was there no Black man on the jury? That alone makes the verdict unfair.
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The defense was disrespectful and at times aggressive.
Should the prosecutor have arranged for psychological coaching knowing that the defense would try to browbeat her?
That issue was discussed somewhat on the Juror B37 post comment thread.
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Rachel was a brave young woman. West had a job to do — defend Zimmerman — and he did this by keeping Rachel on the stand as long as possible while trying to bait her into arguments. He didn’t actually care what she said. He simply wanted the white jurors to dislike her. He was brutally aggressive and his pressure was intense. How many other people her age could have withstood that level of public pressure?
In my opinion Rachel weathered his attack with aplomb, but based on B37 it appears West accomplished what he set out to do. The only reason her testimony was discredited was that people didn’t like her. The only reason for that was her physiognomy and, perhaps as a secondary reason, her dialect.
As to dialect, as Agabond notes, there is nothing wrong with her dialect, nor her communication skills. There is nothing inherently wrong with a vernacular dialect. But nonetheless people do tend to look down on people who speak in certain dialects. It’s a class/race thing, though, not a communication thing. In fact, as Agabond also note, Rachel speaks multiple languages. She’s probably more articulate than most Americans, who speak only one language.
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@ sondis
U on it today, Yes I do agree. Black ppl should stay away from the media or keep it short and to the point. And did u hear about rush using her interview to say oh I can say the n word now just use an a at the end. That was disgusting and that is why I wish she wouldn’t have said that. I would also say black ppl shouldn’t go on reality shows either. They just show black ppl acting crazy and u see how they auto tune and treat black ppl that act a certain way and give an animated interview. That is why they did all those news stories about Charles ramsey but ignored the black teens that saved that kidnapped white girl. They think of black people as either violent or shucking and jiving and dancing and being happy. Rachel told it like it is on piers morgan, I especially loved the part about u have kids u tell them stranger danger and run away, but with trayvon u wanted him to stay put and answer a strangers questions. The whites in the audience folded their arms and looked in disgust because they know that was true. Reminds me of everybody hates chris where it was a fire drill and everybody evacuated but his teacher was like chris u go back inside and make sure nothing valuable gets burned. rofl.
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ok in that pic which one is the daughter? http://i2.listal.com/image/1046208/600full-white-chicks-screenshot.jpg
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Glenn:
Why doesn’t the jury selection process screen for prejudice, racism and xenophobia?
Why was there no Black man on the jury? That alone makes the verdict unfair.
I totally agree with you Glenn. Just as society is diverse a jury should be representive of that so rich, poor, various races, etc.
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I am curious to know, if Rachel has a speech impediment. I can see her having this, because she does tend to pause a lot, before continuing her sentences.
I don’t claim to know if this is true at all, i just think she may have this speech disorder and hasn’t been, diagnosed. I could be wrong.
That being said, that doesn’t have anything to do with intelligence or communicational skills or comprehension skills.
I understood everything she was saying and those jurors that claim, they were not able to understand her, were just saying that, because they didn’t want to understand her.
They didn’t even believe anything she was saying, despite being the only person, other than Zimmerman , to talk to Treyvon in his last few minutes of his life.
This case is typical of white people, always denying that race is never a issue in American society.
White people are strife with white guilt, so they refuse to admit to or talk about, racism.
White people refuse to acknowledge what they have done, therefore they continue to deny, that they have done anything wrong or continue to do anything wrong.
So as it stands, white people will continue to keep their eyes shut and pretend that racism, isn’t apart of America anymore.
White people are ashamed of what their ancestors did to black people, during slavery but are not ashamed of what they are doing to black people, today!
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sondis
On her piers morgan interview all I heard her say was she has an overbite, idk if that makes her pause because she feels self conscious about how the word would come out or if its like u said an undiagnosed speech impediment. I really don’t care I can understand what she says, my older brother was delayed in talking and had to go to speech therapy when he was younger but we still understood him. Some people just exaggerate someone else’s imperfections and act like they can’t understand at all. There are some ppl from other countries who have strong accents and may mis pronounce some words but I still understand what they are trying to say. Sheit at least some people do try to speak English, they complain about the ones that don’t, then they complain and make fun of the ones that try, Meanwhile that same person speaks another language and is learning English so they can get paid more for speaking another language and get promoted. While they are laughing, yeah laugh on, when that person passes we’ll see how much u laugh then.
Yes white guilt does make them feel like they need to shut us up from reminding them of the atrocities their ancestors committed. I think this is why we don’t see too many black ppl on shows retracing their ancestry because they know where that would lead….
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Omnipresent and others. I agree it is odd there were no blacks on the jury. I think the idea of the prosecution “throwing the case” was brought up no another thread and the lack of diversity on the jury is in my opininon, one of the stronger points in that argument.
As for Rachel, I don’t think she had much bearing on the outcome of the trial. Her testimony cut off when the story became most critical – the unknown events that happened between the two coming face to face and then the ground fighting. Did Zimmerman show off the gun in a John Wayne move? Did he fast-draw or do some other trick to scare Trayvon into thinking it was fight or die? These are the things we don’t know. Had the line been open during the encounter, up to and through the fight, then her testimony would have been significant, but hearing a thump of wet grass and the line goes dead doesn’t give enough information to help or hurt either case.
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I actualy find a lot information I need in her testimony and phone call
The call tells me a bunch of things, Martin was very concerned about someone following him…very concerned…he blatently had no idea what Zimmerman’s motives were…and now , If Im not mistaken, he used the n word instead of the c word, he wasnt even being racialy devided as I thought…but he was worried about someone stalking him
And the breif exchange on the phone, totaly verifies, Zimmerman didnt even identify himself as neighborhood watch…
Martin blatently asks Zimmerman “why are you following me?”..Zimmerman dosent tell him why at all, instead, he puts forth the extremly confrontational “what are you doing here?”
Zimmerman, at that moment, really wasnt interested in being neighborhood watch as much as being confrontational and he stereotyped Martin
It is mind boggling that this wasnt flushed out in the open full force…very disapointing…and extremly relevant and helps me to understand the reality
I could only bear to watch a little of the testimony as I was passing through the states…I saw nothing wrong with her bearing, and she seemed controled…three languages indeed
Very chumpy for people to be stripping down her charactor
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I understood what she was saying, and also what she meant by “grass sounds” and “mailing area.” I’ve heard people say she was rolling her eyes and doing “chicken head” moves, but I never saw any of that. My impression of her on the witness stand was that she’s a young lady, not fully confident about who she is as a woman (which is normal for most teenage girls), but also apprehensive because she’s in a court of law testifying about the death of a valued friend; in other words, she’s perfectly normal for someone her age in a situation like that. She used slang and colloquialisms. Again, so what?
Well, there is belief in some quarters that Zimmerman may have had his gun drawn before the “tussle.” To me, there is some validity in that assumption. If he were wearing his gun holstered at his waist, which is how he reenacted his story to the police, there’s no way he could have drawn his gun, taken deadly aim, and shot Trayvon with such accuracy if Trayvon were straddling him on the ground, pummeling him, and banging his head against the sidewalk.
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I feel sorry for kids like Jeantel who come from areas where such non-standard English is commonly spoken. Those types of syntax, grammar, and diction are serious impediments to being able to participate fully in the broader economy. I’m not sure what can be done about it.
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They did the same thing to Jeantel that they did to the dead Martin and which they do to black people in general. No surprise there.
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@ Anon Ymous
I just deleted your comment. It belongs on the Open Thread.
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The underlying theme here is enforced conformity to whatever mainstream America considers the norm, especially when it comes to black Americans.
Of course, had Jeantel been a lifelong white American resident of Florida’s backwater swamps, there would have been absolutely no mention made of her hillbilly swamp dialect. The defense and jury would have heard her loud and clear, since they would have deemed her worthy of being heard in the first place.
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Look at the picture of the people . The small one. Look at the white woman on the left. Jesus Christ, that smile, DOES NOT LOOK HUMAN. Does she look like a human being to you? The skin on her face is stretched, so she likes some type of Stepford Wife, or Cenobyte. I don’t think I want to go to Florida any more……..
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Okay, Abagond thanks for redirection…now I just need to find the open thread.
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@satanforce that’s Don West’s 20 year old daughter, who, when posting this image on instagram and there was national outrage, people claimed “Leave her alone, she’s just a kid!” Yet Rachel Jeantel, a 19 year old trilingual woman whom the court pretended to not understand, is a “grown adult.”
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@satanforce
OMG. I thought the same thing. Something is OFF about her. The emptiness is palpable.
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^^^ Her soul…I can’t feel her soul …… Its not there. Are we a society that is slowly creating P-Zombies, incapable of affect?
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that is his wife on the far left his daughter is in the middle.
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kinda looks like she about to self destruct http://anabaptistly.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/stepford-wife.jpg
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@Satanforce
I agree something about her is off but that is a typical White person. They lack empathy and emotion especially for Blacks and non Whites.
And I wonder why they were making fun of Rachel Jeantel? I find it sad how this country is so racist and like to put down Black people.
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@Mstoogoog4yall
LOL that picture was hilarious. Plus it was sad the way they made fun of Rachel Jeantel.
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Elsevier, a Dutch magazine, which is liberal in the secular right sense, seems to have chosen Zimmy’s side.
It claims that in Europe the USA is still seen as
” a country where retarded whites, unhampered by well-thought out gun legislation as we have in Europe, draw a gun without a care if they see a black in a well-to-do neighbourhood.” and that that is no longer the case, and that US- reporting on the case was usually NUANCED. The article did not say where he had found those rare nuanced and balanced sources… The way US sources reported on Miss Jenteal was everything but nuanced, in my opinion Elsevier is far beyonfd the time it was a quality mag.
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Yes Randy, because as we all know that the the majority of the honey boo-boo whytes living in America, and other English speaking parts of the world speak the unadulterated Queens English. Pffffffffffffffft.
“The English Language In 24 Accents”
(http://youtu.be/dABo_DCIdpM)
“The odd accent of Tangier VA (from AMERICAN TONGUES)”
(http://youtu.be/AIZgw09CG9E)
“Ocracoke Brogue excerpt”
( http://youtu.be/csfyrRqc5TU)
“Outer Banks English”
(http://youtu.be/jXs9cf2YWwg)
“Appalachian English”
( http://youtu.be/03iwAY4KlIU)
Spicy Cajun Accents (from AMERICAN TONGUES)
(http://youtu.be/Eqfdn8_ftYQ)
“How they talk in KY, OH and TX (from AMERICAN TONGUES)”
(http://youtu.be/FiNsyXHBZak)
“Georgian Southern Dialect”
(http://youtu.be/KInKaNpt33Y)
“Northeastern NY Dialect”
(http://youtu.be/vSSQfeDgG5c)
“Boston’s North End (from AMERICAN TONGUES)
“The accents of the 5 boroughs of NYC — a how to by a native — the real deal”
(http://youtu.be/1hrA9-6o4tI)
etc………and there are many more examples out there I’m sure.
Had Rachel been whyte. the defense attorneys would have thought better than to exhibit such blatant contempt and discourtesy in-front of the jurors. The fact that they felt they didn’t have to worry about doing so speaks volumes in itself.
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@ abagond,
Isn’t Rachel’s parents country of origin the United States? I’m just trying to make sense of the defense attorney’s question.
Thanks.
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What languages does she speak?
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@GoldFire,
Rachel’s mother is from Haiti and her father from Santo Domingo.
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Well, I am glad that Tom Joyner,from the Tom Joyner morning show is going to provide tutors, and help her go to college. I think that’s wonderful.
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@ GoldFire and Riverside Rob
She was born in Miami, where she grew up and still lives. She is part Haitian, part Dominican. She speaks Haitian Creole (her first language), English and Spanish.
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@Mary,
I am happy for her also. I have not seen anyone mention that she have a very serious underbite, a class III malocclusion which is responsible for how she speaks. Here is more info on that.
http://www.dentalhealthmed.com/conditions/underbite.html
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I co-sign with commenter Mac Lyons.
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Thanks @Casey. 🙂 Knowing that takes some of the sting out of the question somehow albeit the racial subtext still packs a punch; especially when considering the inarticulate way she did speak English.
@mary burrell,
I heard he said he would help her get into college if she wanted, but the fact that he’s going to provide her a tutors as well is excellent news. I hope she makes the most of it.
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Well, I hope she takes advantage of the opportunity.
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Abagond, have you considered writing a post on accents? I watched part of Rachel’s interview on Piers Morgan and I don’t think I’ve ever heard that particular style of speech. I assumed it was something White racists exaggerate (for example “Let me axe you a question”) to denigrate Black Americans.
Heck, you can do a whole series of posts on accents WITHIN the United States! 😀
Note that most of my exposure to American accents have been through Hollywood, so I know that I am coming from an odd POV. 🙂
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@ abagond,
You said: “She speaks Haitian Creole (her first language), English and Spanish.”
I thought I heard something in her accent that sounded like Creole. I was thinking Cajun personally, but yes, definitely, something that was influenced by French. Well, that should explain some of her speaking style and accent, in addition to, as @Casey’s reminded us, the fact that she suffers from a serious underbite.
Wow, I hope her self esteem is truly still intact after the battering she took, poor girl.
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Did any other news network interview her besides CNN?
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wait now i’m confused. I thought the girl in the middle is his daughter and the woman on the far left is his wife. Oh I see it says his daughters. well dam she shouldn’t talk, she look old as he11. I just looked it up and it says the one on the left is Rachel west, the one in the middle with the shades is molly west.
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Mack Lyons:
Surely you’re not arguing against the value of good grammar, are you?
GoldFire:
I didn’t mention or imply race.
I suspect, through admittedly untrained observations, that NY and Boston accents differ less in terms of grammar and syntax from “the contemporary norm” than do country or urban dialects.
Additionally, places like NY and Boston have greater economic opportunities than do places where country or urban dialects predominate. People who cannot at least code-switch to the “common norm” will face barriers to having professional careers.
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I feel soooo sorry for this girl. The way they grill her, all these useless interviews about the word “cracka”….ughhh! Seriously? Why is she being treated like she’s the one on trial? Zimmerman had the gun, Zimmerman pulled the trigger. Martin stood his ground, Zimmerman ended his life.
She didn’t ask for her good friend to die, she didn’t ask to be used as some symbol for a stereotypical caricature, she didn’t ask to be the target of prejudiced White supremacists and considered an embarrassment by other Blacks (I’m referring to a video Tommy Sotomayor did of her).
She doesn’t present the most eloquent testimony, but once again, none of the events that occurred were her choice, she is simply doing her part to help the rest of America make sense of it, to bring justice to Martin. As for English not being her first language, I would never have guess that, I heard no Haitian-Creole accent from her. Its not so easy to guess if someone is first generation or if someone immigrated and became Americanized, unless you hear an accent. I feel I have more of a Caribbean accent than her despite being born in the States, and my family’s island speaks English by default. That lawyer’s questions regarding her language skills were just condescending, sigh.
To paraphrase what someone stated in another post, they aren’t really trying to hear Jeantel, they just want to use her to further their agenda. It’s sad that people think so lowly of her because of how she looks and sounds, her socioeconomic class…they are blatantly ignoring what she is saying or trying to discredit it.
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Riverside_Rob:
Omnipresent and others. I agree it is odd there were no blacks on the jury. I think the idea of the prosecution “throwing the case” was brought up no another thread and the lack of diversity on the jury is in my opininon, one of the stronger points in that argument.
I was agreeing with what Glenn said about the jury selection but yes, I dont understand why it was an all white jury or even why ALL juries to not reflect a cross representation of society.
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The jury is selected through voir dire process. It is the prerogative of both the Prosecution and Defense to effect the jury’s makeup.
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King:
Hi, i’m probably being a bit thick here but what does voir dire process mean?
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How stupid is it to think somebody who is multi lingual is ignorant?
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It is quite distressing to me that whenever a black person is introduced to the American public by the news media, the judgement will come under. The same ugly stereotypes are played out. Rachel Jeantel was judged by America. Because she did not measure up to society’s standards of what is acceptable in America. I can’t help but wonder if she had been from the alligator infested swamps of the Everglades would she be held held under the same scruntiny? Her speech pattern was judged, people didn’t bother to learn her back ground. That she had a mix of different cultures of people who come to Florida from Haiti and Dominican Republic. I was especially distressed at comments on many black news blogs, In the comment section many black commenters had cruel and hurtful things to say about Rachel Jeantel. It reminded me of the Sotomayer thread. It was hate aimed at a young black woman,coming from other black people. The racist attorney posting those ugly Instagram photos with the ice cream cones,the ugly captions underneath,spoke volumes who that man and most of white America is. Rachel Jeantel, did not deserve this ugly attack from Americans.
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@ mary
That was the most annoying thing to me was that other black ppl joined in on bashing her. I saw a youtube vid and the racists were there as usual and calling her grape ape and this one black commenter was like I know I shouldn’t laugh but lol. I’m fed up with black ppl like that. I’m not going to make fun of them if something happens to them, but I will not give an f. They judge Rachel without knowing her or caring to know her. U see what they think of Haiti anyway, when that earthquake happened they were saying all kinds of sheit, even the racists here came out from under their rock. a lot of the black blogs are owned by whites or black ppl married to whites, so I stopped going to those, I just come to the conscious black blogs.
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@mstoogood4yall: Exactly. All these celebrities pretending to give a damn. All they want is facetime in the camera. It is so fake. It’s disgusting. Where is the concern about the Haitians now?
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Don West’s treatment of Jeantel on the witness stand was racist, when she said she didn’t understand cursive writing,it gave me pause. I had to regroup my thinking, cursive writing is not encouraged anymore,because most students text and his computers for their homework assignments. So people questioned her literacy. That was unfair. Don West was a racist jerk. Those Instagram photos was very telling who he and his family are. The white priveledge and the fact that they feel so damn entitled spoke volumes to who and his wife are. And they are teaching their daughter who posted the Instagram photos to be a racist, who feels her whiteness makes her superior.
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*Cursive writing is not encouraged in schools anymore, because most students text and complete their homework assignments on the computer. So Jeantel being unable to read cursive shouldn’t have been strange to everyone judging her literacy.
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This video might be applicapable to this discussion.
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Poor Rachel, I don’t think she was lying at all, anything she lied about while related wasn’t relevant to if she was telling the truth about what she heard that night.
I presume what shot her credibility in the eyes of the jury was hearing that lied about something related to the case.
I just think she got a little confused at times and had trouble expressing herself due to her under bite and English not being her first language.
“time the camera, zoomed into a white persons face, it showed disdain and disgust.”
That’s not true, if anything it might be disgust over how she was put on blast after loosing a friend in court like that maybe? We must have been watching different interviews because it seemed to only zoom in when people laughed.
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yea u must have been watching a different interview. When Rachel said when u have kids u tell them stranger danger and to run away, and when trayvon ran ppl were saying why didn’t he stop and answer the questions. The black people were clapping and the whites had their arms folded. It was especially this one old white woman that had her arms folded and was shaking her head during the interview.
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@mstoogood4yall
Thank you for correcting me
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how does that vid apply to this, imo it should be on the juror b37 thread
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It was the vid of Rachel Jenteal interviewing with Piers Morgon. How does it not? I was more so reacting to a comment about it, so I’m not really who you ask if you were.
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I was talking about the vid link anne posted.
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Ok, sorry. Thought I did look closer into the interview and saw no one with disgust on their face at the fact that TM ran. There was only one person clapping before the interview ended. Stanger danger isn’t a black thing so I find that odd.
“. It was especially this one old white woman that had her arms folded and was shaking her head during the interview.”
I only saw do that once her once.
Refer to a time in the vid because I think I’m missing something.
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I’m sorry, she doesn’t speak clearly and that will be a problem for her relating to others outside her world, it will always hold her back.I don’t doubt her testimony, but I question her intelligence level.It’s doing her a disservice to say “she’s fine, there just some diction problems there” that’s a cop out to strive.I would like to see a Morgan-Spurlock doppelganger do a check on her progress in society after 10 years.My assumption would be she never made it through her scholarship appointed higher education, she has a few children out of wedlock, and still blames the white man, I hope I’m wrong.
As to the race thing, blacks&whites are a minority in the truest sense of the word, there are more american mutts (many races mixed) and all side pickers are insulting as hell in my book.You should get no special privileges if you are black/white/asian/plaid/polka-dot/gay/straight,…whatever.All that does is make the people getting the special attention weak with a sense of entitlement.
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Rachel does not speak with a Creole or Spanish accent and she has no problems speaking or understanding English — she sounds like any native black American you would meet who is from Miami, Pompano, or W. Palm Beach.
Her under-bite is her problem (she mentioned it on Piers Morgan) which she said ‘would have to be surgically corrected.’
At the trial, Rachel was doing her best to speak “proper” English, she was trying to not sound like a Miami “hoodrat”… and for all her troubles, she got picked on and ridiculed.
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@ Troy
I had no trouble understanding her English. The only unclearness in it was that twice she ran her words together and often she dropped her voice – neither is a sign of a lack of intelligence. Nor is having an underbite.
Further, I doubt that most of those who say she is unintelligent could have held up as well as she did under five and a half hours of cross-examination by Don West. Especially at age 19. From what I saw he was only able to trick her once.
She also understood the racial dynamics at play better than almost any white person and probably better than most black people her age.
How well you speak like White Americans is NOT a sign of intelligence.
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Only in America, can a Hee-Haw overall wearing.straw between the teeth hillbilly family like reality star Honey Boo-Boo, and her family in their lean to shack by the railroad tracks, be rewarded millions of dollars just being themselves. And America ridiculed Miss Rachel Jeantel. Go figure.
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@ mary
yep that is the truth. That girl don’t even want to do the reality show anymore, yet I don’t hear ppl criticizing them and making fun of them. But then again i’ll give white ppl that, they don’t laugh and talk about each other in front of other races. Whereas with ms jeantel it was some black ppl participating in making fun of her so she was fair game to everybody else.smh
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Have any of you here heard of Pastor James Manning? I ‘ve just found him and I wonder if he is well known (notorious is likely). He says some pretty outlandish things, but they don’t ring false. Any opinions on the Pastor?
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9s900vZr_k)
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