Best opinion piece I've read yet on Rachel (Trayvon's friend) and her testimony at the trial.

[pnwmom]

If she was combative, she deserved to be. She was having to respond to a combative defense attorney who was deliberately twisting her responses.

http://www.salon.com/2013/06/28/did_anyone_really_hear_rachel_jeantel/

These kinds of terms – combat, aggression, anger – stalk black women, especially black women who are dark-skinned and plus-sized like Rachel, at every turn seeking to discredit the validity of our experiences and render invisible our traumas. By painting Rachel Jeantel as the aggressor, as the one prone to telling lies and spreading untruths, it became easy for the white male defense attorney to treat this 19-year-old, working-class black girl, a witness to the murder of her friend, as hostile, as a threat, as the one who needed to be regulated and contained and put in her place.

SNIP

The thing about grammars, though, is that they rely on language, on a way of speaking and communicating, to give them power. And Rachel Jeantel has her own particular, idiosyncratic black girl idiom, a mashup of her Haitian and Dominican working-class background, her U.S. Southern upbringing, and the three languages – Hatian Kreyol (or Creole), Spanish and English — that she speaks.

The unique quality of her black vernacular speaking style became hypervisible against the backdrop of powerful white men fluently deploying corporate, proper English in ways that she could not do. The way they spoke to her was designed not only to discredit her, but to condescend to and humiliate her. She acknowledged this show of white male power by repeatedly punctuating her responses with a curt but loaded, “Yes, Sir.”

SNIP

What we witnessed with Jeantel was a deliberate attempt by the defense to mis-hear and misunderstand her, to suggest, for instance, that statements like “I coulda hear Trayvon, Trayvon,” meant that, in fact, she did not hear Trayvon screaming for George Zimmerman to “get off, get off,” of him.

Still she maintained her composure and clarified, “That means I could hear Trayvon.”

SNIP

Given the hostile and combative space into which she entered, a space in which she had to fight for the integrity of her own words, combativeness seems like the most appropriate posture.

[alcibiades_mystery]

1. "black womanhood, black manhood and urban adolescence are always on trial in the American imaginary"

Absolutely goddamn right.

[Just Saying]

2. K & R

Great piece!

[tblue]

3. They treat her like she's the guilty party.

She's a witness who lost a close friend! Show her some fresking respect! I hope the jury has a heart and can see the defense attorney's bullying and contempt for what it is. They treat her like she's an inferior and I hope that blows up in their face.

[all american girl]

4. I ealize the defense has to do a job,

but wanted to humiliate her....the cursive thing....how many time did he say that to her. All I wanted to do was give her a hug, she did great with all the crap they gave her...she stood up to a old white dude and stood proud.

[cheyanne]

5. Whatever you may think of the demeanor and language that was used,

it doesn't change the fact that Jeantel changed her story several times. This fact goes to the heart of her reliability as a witness. And impreaching a witness's reliability is not a crime.

[enough]

9. Nice new word: impreaching. Sound very meaningful. (nt)

[oldhippie]

15. Is that really a new word for you?

Really?

[tblue37]

29. Enough is mocking the typo in "impreaching," not

Last edited Mon Jul 1, 2013, 03:03 AM - Edit history (1)

really saying she/he doesn't know the word "impeaching," which is, of course, clearly intended in the preceding post. We ALL make typos, but they allow for easy attacks.

[oldhippie]

30. Oh crap, my bad. I missed the "R" completely .....

... and missed the whole point. Thanks for pointing that out. Teaches me a lesson.

[pnwmom]

10. The process of remembering isn't an exact science. In fact, if all her stories were exactly the same

then it would be MUCH more likely that she had been coached.

What needs to be considered is her overall story, not small details that she included when she talked to someone and didn't mention when she talked to someone else -- because each conversation is different. One person might ask her a question or say something that prompts her to answer with a particular memory that she suddenly recalls. Another person's questions elicit different parts of her memory.

And when memories come to us, they do it in fits and starts, bits and pieces -- not full blown and precise in every detail. Memories aren't like a video or even a still camera.

[uponit7771]

12. The GATING parts of her testimony NEVER EVER changed...that's a fact she's been pretty

...consistent in the timeline and the events

She hasn't been consistent on how old she was though... as if that fuckin matters

[riverwalker]

6. John Good did the same with his testimony today

but defense spoon fed him excuses and rationale "you didn't mean to lie, correct? You just forgot to say that" "You just were not asked that question before, right?"

[nolabear]

7. Did anyone else see the selfie he posted today?

I saw it on FB and don't know where it came from but it said something about "enjoying a cone after defeating stupid" (slight paraphrase) and showed him and wife and daughter toasting with Chick Fil-A cones.

[pinboy3niner]

11. Starry Messenger posted it in GD:

George Zimmerman's Attorney Don West Took The Most Offensive Selfie Of All Time (PHOTO)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023122550

On edit: It looks like HipChick posted it even earlier...

#Zimmerman Defense celebrates beating stupidity
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023121908

[enough]

8. Yes, that is the best. I'm going to be seeking out more writiing from Ms. Cooper.

Thanks for posting this.

[David Zephyr]

13. K&R for Rachel Jeantel!

To think that such a young teen could push back against all she did simply blew me away and I am very proud of her.

Those jackasses that pretended they couldn't understand her really pissed me off. What racist pigs! All that "please repeat" shit was completely unnecessary.

Go Rachel Jeantel! She's my hero!!!

[kitt6]

14. Now I'm going over and listen to

Janet Jackson, (youtube) "Alright with me." Thinking about writing OJ a letter! NOW.

[SleeplessinSoCal]

16. I'm trying very hard to ignore this trial.

But I did see her on the stand yesterday. When she told Trayvon Martin that the "creepy" guy might be a rapist, as he was following him, I thought that would put in my head that possibility. And it would be even more present as he continued to show up, even when he reached his father's home.

I haven't heard if anybody followed up on this statement about the possibility of him being a rapist, but I sure would. And I wonder if people assumed she said "racist".

[pnwmom]

17. They might have misheard her because she spoke so softly,

had a slight accent, and had braces that made her speech a little fuzzy.

[SleeplessinSoCal]

21. But there is a huge difference between saying he might be a rapist & being a racist

Somehow the prosecution didn't really delineate very well, if at all. It struck me as being important.

It was excruciating to try to decipher what she was saying though.

[pnwmom]

22. Just one letter. Not much if you're speaking softly and braces are muffling your consonants.

Also, brains sometimes hear what they're expecting to hear. Even if she was intelligible, some people might hear a different word because that's what they were expecting.

[SleeplessinSoCal]

26. It has been talked about out of court. Maybe in court too because I'm trying to ignore this trial

I'm not doing a very good job. Found this which shows it wasn't just me:

"But “ass” could go with “cracker” — “ass-cracker.” The conversation continued, according to Jeantel: “So… he told me the man was looking at him, so I had to think it might have been a rapist.”

Why rapist? A man raping a man? How common is that as a fear? But it was the first thing Jeantel thought to say after he said creepy-ass cracker/creepy ass-cracker. The term “ass cracker” could easily mean a man who rapes a man, especially one who goes after a teenaged boy."

http://www.ironicsurrealism.com/2013/06/27/video-zimmerman-trial-witness-rachel-jeantel-refuses-to-say-trayvons-creepy-ass-cracker-is-a-racial-term/

[Flatulo]

18. To be perfectly honest, I have no idea what “I coulda hear Trayvon, Trayvon" means.

Who, exactly, is being served when Chinese and Indian students come here and learn a more correct form of English than our own kids? These are the people that our children will be competing with in the job market.

Is Rachel's vernacular commonly used in engineering, or medicine, or business? This kid could have great potential, but we'll never really know, because her poor English will limit her options in life.

We've collectively failed this young women.

I umderstand that we all have dialects that reflect where we came from, but there has to be a lowest common denominator, agreed upon language form, or else we can't communicate with each other.

[JI7]

24. i have heard that English is not Rachel's first language

and her family immigrated from Haiti.

[pnwmom]

25. Most Indian students who come here have learned English as a primary language -- in India.

But it is a common complaint among US undergrads in science and engineering that they can't understand the accents of the many foreign grad students who teach them (as teaching assistants.)

And if you've ever traveled in Scotland, Liverpool, or Ireland, you know how hard it can be to understand your native language in a very different accent. But why can a Scotsman say, "I cunna hear," meaning "I could not hear" -- and not be considered dumb and uneducated? And yet when Rachel said, "I coulda hear," meaning, "I could hear," then she is disparaged? Neither uses a pronunciation that is the same as Standard American English, but most white people don't disparage Scottish accents.

[brush]

27. It's environment.

If you live in a neighborhood where that vernacular is common, it's certainly going to work it's way into your speech patterns, especially if you don't have the means to go to college.

I understood her okay.

Maybe she should've spoken in one of the other two languages she speaks.

That's right. She's trilingual, and English is not her first language. She's no dummy as she stood up to that lawyer just fine.

I'm betting that attorney couldn't even began to speak or understand the Creole and Spanish she is fluent in.

[SaveOurDemocracy]

19. Thank you for posting this thoughtful, truthful piece. If anyone discovers a good site,

...developed for the support of Rachel Jeantel, please let me know.

K&R!

[K Gardner]

20. Beautiful ! K&R.

[applegrove]

23. And being somebody who lives the

oral tradition she is more qualified to interpret trayvon on a phone call than some white man lawyer. Or some white female jury member. She is the expert on what Trayvon‘s words meant. Not the court. Only another teenager could be an expert witness.

[NaturalHigh]

28. Isn't a defense attorney supposed to be combative?

His job is not to coddle an opposing witness, only to treat her just well enough that he doesn't alienate the jury. If I'm ever on trial, I don't want a jolly old fellow worried about hurting feelings as an attorney. I want somebody who will do his or her best to win.

[pnwmom]

32. And the rest of us should use our heads when we watch him being combative.

And not blame his young target for a normal emotional response to what must have felt like an insulting attack.

[davidpdx]

31. I just happened to see this one as well

I thought it hit the nail on the head in terms of how she was treated on the stand. I didn't see her entire testimony, but did see some clips of it. It will be interesting to see how the whole thing is interpreted by the jury.