Posted on 06/28/2013 8:23:28 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
I must admit, I’m kinda feeling Rachel Jeantel.
While watching the proceedings in the George Zimmerman trial in the death of Trayvon Martin, I have found the two days of testimony by the last person to speak with the 17-year-old student to be nothing short of riveting.
Let’s be honest. Jeantel is not your average witness. She is a 19-year-old Miami resident who is due to complete high school next year. Her speech mannerisms are utterly urban, about as far from the queen’s English as one could imagine. And her disposition on the stand ranged from annoyance to sheer antagonism.
Yet, what was incredibly fascinating about watching her on the stand was her clear determination to be herself and to stand firm in presenting her account of the events on the night Trayvon Martin was shot by George Zimmerman in February of last year.
She was peppered with questions by Zimmerman’s lawyers, who were determined to portray her as a witness with varying accounts and to cast her as being less than credible. But no matter what was thrown at her, she showed a determination to, well, stand her ground.
Jeantel is, of course, a star witness for the prosecution. She testified about the cell phone conversation she had with her close friend Trayvon Martin as he walked from a 7-11 convenience store to the home of his father’s fiancée in a gated apartment complex in Sanford, Florida, one evening. She talked about how her teenaged friend, Trayvon, had talked about his consuming interest in getting to the house and watching the NBA All-Star game.
She maintained that Trayvon was annoyed by the fact that he was being followed by a “creepy-a-- cracker,” a term he apparently used for Zimmerman and one that was apparently the source of captivation and undue focus by the defense attorneys. She told, in heartbreaking detail, how she heard Trayvon ask Zimmerman why he was following him. She told of the last thing she heard her teenage friend say on the phone, “Get off. Get off.”
Throughout her time on the stand, the lawyers for Zimmerman sought to find ways to puncture her credibility, often in condescending and pejorative ways. In fact, her time on the stand was so protracted because defense attorney Don West constantly asked her to repeat herself, to talk slowly, as if he were seeking to understand the language of an alien from another planet.
The daughter of Haitian and Dominican immigrants, Jeantel’s first language was Creole. She later picked up English and has clearly become conversant in the language of urban Miami. But West continued to speak to her as if she were some outlandish extraterrestrial rather than a teenager. He asked her about the expressions used in “your culture,” as though teenagers of all races don’t have their own linguistic idiosyncrasies.
Through it all, Jeantel would not be moved or dissuaded. She made it abundantly plain that she was not impressed with the authority of this lawyer and showed she could volley with the best of them. “What are you talking about?” she asked West at one point. “What are you saying?”
Jeantel is a teenager who has been thrust into an extraordinary situation. She is a star witness in one of the most highly watched trials in modern times, testifying about a phone call with a friend who was killed shortly after their telephone conversation. She admitted to feeling guilty about being Trayvon’s last conversational partner and not knowing how deadly that moment was for him. She never hid who she was or how she felt. Clearly she was reluctant and displeased about being there.
She has already been a highly talked about figure in the world of the Internet, with some finding her appalling and others applauding her (I suspect that how one views her has a great deal to do with one's familiarity with African-American teenagers). Her feelings are readily understandable and it's refreshing to see her resolve to state her perspective, even if it means refusing to kowtow to lawyers questioning her.
She is impressive to me because she never swayed from presenting Trayvon Martin as a young man who was thinking of nothing more sinister than the jump shots he hoped to see on television later that night. It remains to be seen what the jury will do with that information. But for her part, she presented it in a way that was consistent and that did justice to her friend.
You appear to be the only one here who understands the feral urban youth term. Most have fallen into thinking it has a racist meaning. Even the defense attorney failed to get it.
If he had understood, then in context he'd also have understood the rape banter between the perp and his "gf."
He might then have moved on to ask her if she encouraged St. Travon to go jump on the "creepy" ass-cracker. Goes to the motive of Travons assault on Zimmerman.
Yet this writer applauds this walking talking stereotype. Its a possibility that a couple of the women on this jury are low information zerO supporters who felt bad for her, but there is a good chance one or two of the white females on this jury has a bad experience with a black rude female like this witness out at a store, or sitting behind the counter at the DMV. The author of this article fails to realize why she was in court and who she needed to convince.
Exactly. Proof she's lying.
Your {sic} a racist.
Female consultant is likely the provocateur.
Black Entertainment Television. Where’s the diversity? Where’s the Cracker Entertainment Television channel?
Black teenagers have been playing Knockout King, a game where you go around finding white people to beat up and put in the hospital. It’s also called “polar bear hunting.” The object is to knock out the unsuspecting victim with one blow. Whoever scored a knockout was considered the Knockout King.
Being that Travon Martin belonged to a street fight club, Zimmerman offered a way to practice his punching technique. In Zimmerman’s case, the blow struck his nose which protected him from going unconscious from the hit. Martin thought he could finish the job by bashing Zimmerman’s head on the sidewalk. That did not work as expected because Zimmerman pushed himself to the grass. In that process, his shirt rode up exposing his gun in his waistband. Martin, seeing the gun, reached for it. However Zimmerman stopped Martin short of getting control of the gun. Zimmerman knew that by shooting Martin it might be the last chance he had to save his own life.
Yes I know you were saying she was honest and straight forward but, the poor thing just couldn’t express herself in that manner due to the failure of public education she was “subjected” to.
I think you’re off base. She’s street smart and was lying..period.
It didn’t have anything to do with her being uneducated.
Just because the article came from a BET writer, don’t think it expresses anything other than the conventional wisdom of the NYT, CNN, CBS etc.
At least? There is at least 100 pounds in the lard tube surrounding her neck. I can only imagine how much lard she carries that we couldn't see behind the witness box.
I love the sound of wet grass in the morning.
In Obama's America, blacks realize there are no longer any consequences whatsoever for their senseless attacks on innocent whites. The thug culture has been given license by Obama/Holder to do as they want. Thus the black on white attacks have been rising year after year since January 2009. And things are only going to get worse this summer as swarming season gets underway for black gangs.
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She maintained that Trayvon was annoyed by the fact that he was being followed by a “creepy-a-- cracker,” a term he apparently used for Zimmerman and one that was apparently the source of captivation and undue focus by the defense attorneys. She told, in heartbreaking detail, how she heard Trayvon ask Zimmerman why he was following him. She told of the last thing she heard her teenage friend say on the phone, “Get off. Get off.”
Which is a bald faced lie.
Throughout her time on the stand, the lawyers for Zimmerman sought to find ways to puncture her credibility, often in condescending and pejorative ways. In fact, her time on the stand was so protracted because defense attorney Don West constantly asked her to repeat herself, to talk slowly, as if he were seeking to understand the language of an alien from another planet.
She contrived in mumbling and hushed undiscernable tones to the point no one could hear, much less, understand her
The daughter of Haitian and Dominican immigrants, Jeantel’s first language was Creole. She later picked up English and has clearly become conversant in the language of urban Miami. But West continued to speak to her as if she were some outlandish extraterrestrial rather than a teenager. He asked her about the expressions used in “your culture,” as though teenagers of all races don’t have their own linguistic idiosyncrasies.
Through it all, Jeantel would not be moved or dissuaded. She made it abundantly plain that she was not impressed with the authority of this lawyer and showed she could volley with the best of them. “What are you talking about?” she asked West at one point. “What are you saying?”
So she is forgiven for being special and standing up to the bad ole defense attorney? You have to got to be joking! This a murder case with another man’s life on the line. I will say I was shocked the judge hadn’t at least reprimanded her, especially, for her over the top charge “That’s retarded sir”. Maybe the judge has special insight into her arrested development and thought better of it.
Still, are we to expect courtrooms to become places of mockery in the future, rather than the somber exercise of adjudication of facts affecting not only so many lives but, order in American society?
Jeantel is a teenager who has been thrust into an extraordinary situation. She is a star witness in one of the most highly watched trials in modern times, testifying about a phone call with a friend who was killed shortly after their telephone conversation. She admitted to feeling guilty about being Trayvon’s last conversational partner and not knowing how deadly that moment was for him. She never hid who she was or how she felt. Clearly she was reluctant and displeased about being there.
She has already been a highly talked about figure in the world of the Internet, with some finding her appalling and others applauding her (I suspect that how one views her has a great deal to do with one's familiarity with African-American teenagers). Her feelings are readily understandable and it's refreshing to see her resolve to state her perspective, even if it means refusing to kowtow to lawyers questioning her.
You sir a bigot and a presumptuous ass discerning that which you do not know and can’t.
She was there to answer, as a star witness, questions of absolute importance. The court is not her special place to spar with whomever she wants and I am shocked wasn’t held in contempt at a minimum and astonished she won’t be held accountable for her many occasions of perjury.
She is impressive to me because she never swayed from presenting Trayvon Martin as a young man who was thinking of nothing more sinister than the jump shots he hoped to see on television later that night. It remains to be seen what the jury will do with that information. But for her part, she presented it in a way that was consistent and that did justice to her friend.
You ignore the fact that he found Zimmerman to be his shinny object and was distracted from his mission of seeing a game and decided a beat down would be a better use of his time, for which he paid the ultimate price.
No man, is allowed to visit upon another man violence and not expect that his arrogance of aggression will be met with equal or greater force to end his attack or save a life.
I look forward to your justifications of all kinds of butt hurt over the ages when the riots break out at the end of all this.
She’s an addle-brained simpleton. An overstuffed, racist, sack of grease who wouldn’t know the the truth if it bit her on her fat butt.
Given that Zimmerman is quite obviously a Mexican, it tells us something that we way that Martin looked at people who didn’t look black.
MSNBC
I believe that the question specified an employer in their right mind. MSNBC(LSD) hardly qualifies...
the infowarrior
Zimmerman’s father is a white American, his mother is Peruvian.
Source: Free Republic (03/29/2012).
I posted on another thread about a black female student from Ark A,M&N back in the 80s. It was primarily a black college ... the “A”, “M” & “N” stood for “Agricultural, Mechanical and Normal”, not what some might think though that was often mentioned jokingly. She applied for a job as a teacher in Little Rock. The principal told her she was two credits short. A few days later she showed up with two more completed courses added to her transcript. And was hired.
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