Posted on 06/28/2013 11:24:46 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
The George Zimmerman murder trial has captured the nation's attention since it began. When Rachel Jeantel, the last person to speak with Trayvon Martin (aside from Zimmerman), took the stand, it ignited a dialogue on race, class and the cultural shaming of our own.
Many people have been very critical of the way Jeantel speaks -- her subject-verb agreement, her Southern accent, her tendency to say "axe" instead of "ask." Speech is a cultural marker often used to highlight one's otherness. The problem with "improper speech" is not that people who speak in such tongues cannot be understood. It's that they speak in a way that makes others uncomfortable; that it forces people to acknowledge and deal with an otherness that they may otherwise prefer to step around. It is an otherness that makes whites uncomfortable and, apparently, shames blacks to the point of publicly attacking Jeantel for who she is.
In discussing Jeantel's testimony, news_anchors made sure to point out that she wasn't using "the queen's English," harped on the defense's inability to understand her and questioned whether she understood her importance to the trial. On Twitter, black folks said much of the same but also called her fat, ridiculed her complexion and made memes mocking her.
Writer Sherri Williams of the website Backbone compiled a Storify of some of the tweets and memes and further noted: "The black_respectability_police pondered if her father is in her life. They said if George Zimmerman is acquitted it would be her fault because of her sassy attitude. Black folks said girls like Jeantel are the type to keep away from their children."
The important context of what Jeantel has been forced to endure both on the stand and on the night that she last talked to Trayvon Martin has been cast aside.....
(Excerpt) Read more at theroot.com ...
[[On Fox last night (Laura hosting O’Reilly, IIRC), two talking heads both commended Rachel as being an “excellent” witness.]]
And of course laura didn’t laugh ion their faces and say “Are you kidding me? Did you not hear the same testimony I did? She coudl barely get two compelte sentences out without resortign to gangsta speak- and I’m sorry ladies, but gangsta speak is not ‘excellent’ it’s ignorant”
Or am I just dreaming again?
whatever, not tryign it again- not sure why it won’t paragraph- but at least it’s not too much to sift through— but anyways, it’s goign to be tough tryign to read motive into someone’s sentence structure-
basically what hte previous said was “Was martin saying ‘ass cracker’ or was he saying ‘creepy ass’ cracker- there is a difference- West shoudl have questioend her mroe carefully to make it absolteuly clear what martin meant- We’re not sure if martin ever came out and said or even indicated he thoguht george was a homo- so far all we have is jenteal’s opinion that she thought martin thought george was- If amrtin cvame right out and stated soemthign akin to ‘that homo’ or had jenteal said “What do you mean ‘ass cracker’? do you think he’s queer?” then yeah- it could be established with a beyond reasonable doubt conclusion that martin felt george was queer
Which brings up antoehr great point- IF martin meant ‘ass cracker’ meaning he htought george was gay, and then decided to murder what he htought was a gay person- then Not only was martin racist agaisnt ‘niggers’ (in his own words) he was also apaprently homophobic- and it’;s unlcear why the lefgt isn’t turnign on martin for beign both racist and homophobic
It’s never been about principle for the left, the have none that we’d recognize as such. Racism and homophobia are quasi-legal psychobabble intended to undermine and eventually destroy the existing power structure. Does it damage the existing power structure for Trayvon Martin to be depicted as racist or homophobic? No, it does not. Therefore, he isn’t.
You got that right!!!
No ready cursive too?
Saw a poster for this movie today at an Oakland BART station.
First, there is no recording, so there is always doubt as to what was said and what meaning was intended.
However, if you perform a web search for the phrase “ass cracker” in conjunction with the word “gay” it will return many hits which collectively confirm that the term is used to denote anal sex between homosexual males.
All Z needs is reasonable doubt, not “beyond reasonable doubt.”
Most likely, West left it alone since Jeantel confirmed that she heard and understood M to consider Z a homosexual (’pervert’). I do not know if you have been around young disadvantaged black students in remedial school, but their speech can be shockingly graphic and matter-of-fact at the same time. There would be imho nothing strange about M and Jeantel referring to Z as an ass cracker in the anal sex sense. It would imho simply be just another phrase in their everyday vocabulary that they would employ to describe someone who was acting in the manner of what they presumed to be a homosexual stalker. West only needed the references to “pervert” and “rapist,” but no doubt he got the notion that M was hostile to homosexuals, and that provides a motive for M to suckerpunch Z and try to beat him down. Should West choose to invoke further reasonable doubt in order to impugn a motive for M to initiate aggression against Z in his closing arguments, a web search of the term “ass cracker” will provide that. West does not need to circle back and give Jeantel an opportunity to retract the motive that supports Z’s version of the incident that she just gave West. Actually, doing that would be shooting himself in the foot.
I did see the term pop up in a gay forum in web searches I performed a couple of hours after the testimony. However, when I followed the search engine web link, the thread had been removed. I conjectured at the time that the forum moderator did not want to attract further possibly violent attention to gays in schools as a result of encouraging more widespread discussion of the term.
No one should be bullied simply because of their lifestyle-- especially school age minors.
If what Jeantel said was true about M's attitude towards gays, there may be more witnesses among his former student colleauges who could corroborate it.
It might be interesting for the Z defense team to learn why the grief counseling to M's high school was delayed for a month. (For example, perhaps it was to attempt to avoid inciting violence against gay students at the school, and perhaps they already know.)
Shh, we’re not supposed to know about that. :-)
[[However, if you perform a web search for the phrase “ass cracker” in conjunction with the word “gay” it will return many hits which collectively confirm that the term is used to denote anal sex between homosexual males.]]
I am not doubting that- but growing up years ago- another very common slang term was ‘crazt ass” as in somethign like “That creepy ass stranger in town” or “Have you heard abotu that creepy ass teacher in science class?” or somethign liek that
It’s likely martin meant it the way you dewscribe, however, it’s goign to be hard to state that without corroboration from jenteal- did hse come right out and state martin waqs intimatign Z was a creepy homo? I hadn’t heard that?
[[I do not know if you have been around young disadvantaged black students in remedial school,]]
No but I’ve been aroudn disavantaged white folks with much the same vocabulary- even took part in it for a spell in my dumb years
[[West does not need to circle back and give Jeantel an opportunity to retract the motive that supports Z’s version of the incident that she just gave West.]]
Had he struck whiel hte iron was hot, she wouldn’t have been bright enough to figure out what west was doing- buit now that the issue has been dormant, I’m sure her lawyers were alarmed and have instructed her as to how to handle any fuirther question like that shoudl there be more-
[[a web search of the term “ass cracker” will provide that.]]
As will a search for ‘creepy ass’ which was common slang not too long ago-
[[Actually, doing that would be shooting himself in the foot.]]
At this point0- UI agree- I’m sure her lawyers were quite nervous when west was questioning her and have sicne made certain she will retract if questioned further-
[[If what Jeantel said was true about M’s attitude towards gays, there may be more witnesses among his former student colleauges who could corroborate it.]]
That’s a good point IF the defense can get to them before the prosecution has a chance to taint them- I think it woudl be a good strategy to lay out hte facts (especially if they show martin was ifnact hostile towards homosexuals) to shwo that martin set out that night to attack what he htought was a gay person - really lay it on thick- so thick that even soem o nthe left begin to see that martin wasn’t the sweet little kid the media falslely made him out to be-
[[It might be interesting for the Z defense team to learn why the grief counseling to M’s high school was delayed for a month. (For example, perhaps it was to attempt to avoid inciting violence against gay students at the school, and perhaps they already know.)]]
That’s a very good point and one well worth investigating IF it can be established that martin was ifnact hostile towards gay people- this may be just the ‘shock therapy’ the jury might need to snap them out of a possible ‘motherly isntinct’ that wishes to protect martin’s name because they might lean toward thinking he was just an innocent defenseless child- Thjat and the other evidence that martin used drugs, idolized gangsta lifestyle, wanted to be mma baddass etc- andm ostl ikely weanted to build soem ‘street cred’- the defense shoudl really be pushign htis to hopefulyl smash the msm’s false narrative abotu trayvon, and hopefully to wake up at least some who might have mistakenly thoi8ght trayvon coudl do no wrong-
Let’s not forget to mention that her testimony was all ‘hear-say’. She saw nothing of the altercation. I have seen it postulated that she may have spurred little Trayvon on to confront George in an attempt to teach the Cracker Ass Cracker a lesson.
as to my worry abotu an all female jury- I just ran across Rush’s comments abotu a couple of other all female juries that foudn blatant cold blooded murderers ‘not guilty’ because they ‘felt sorry for the kids because they now had no mother (the very mother they just murdered)- here’s the transcript of rush
“RUSH: Right. It’s a cultural divide. He doesn’t understand it! She’s the victim. I tell you, if she’s a star witness... I don’t know. Because you can’t predict juries. I mean, this is an all-female jury, and we’ve had those before. Do you remember the Menendez trial, the two brothers that slaughtered their parents? Well, they were acquitted. Lyle Menendez was acquitted, and they had some of the female jurors on Oprah. You may remember this; some of you may have forgotten it. But I’m not exaggerating.
A female member of that jury went on Oprah and said, “We felt so bad for him because he was going to have to go through the rest of his life without his mother.”
Yeah, that’s because he killed her. In fact, after he thought he killed her, he went back in the house, reloaded the shotgun, and fired again to make sure.
“Yes,” said the female juror, “but he’s suffering. It’s so tragic. He’s going to spend the rest of his life without his mother.”
Yeah, there’s a reason for that. He killed her.
“Well, that’s true, but it’s still very sad that he’s going to go through his life without her.”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3037291/posts?page=37
I’ve just got a very bad feelign aobut hte jury- EVEN IF there is no evidence to convict george, because htese women are women with otherly instincts- liek I said before, they may very well give a guilty verdict becasue soem might ‘feel bad that trayvon’s mother no longer has her son’- Read the above transcript section- there was NO legal reason for them findign hte menendez brothers not guilty- they let their enmotions dictate their verdict-
[[Let’s not forget to mention that her testimony was all ‘hear-say’]]
Soem heresay is allowed in court- usually when a person heres soemthign from someoen who can’t be in court themselves for whatever reason- there’s several other exceptiosn to hte heresay rule as well- but in this case, her testimony is beign allowed because she heard first hand even htough she wasn’;t there- and becasue travon is no logner here to testify, she is allowed to brign hte evidence that she audibly witnessed- but what we have to remember is that she is a cofnessed liar- the defense needs ot really drive htis point home- and hte fact that she is showign obvious contempt for the defense also plays to the fact that she can’t be trusted with what she says
OK...she failed to accept the education she was offered; but her attitude was equally awful.
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