Salon.com > Rachel Jeantel

Lolo Jones compares Trayvon Martin witness to Tyler Perry’s Madea

Fri, 28 Jun 2013 17:58:00 +0000

Olympic track athlete Lolo Jones has found herself at the center of controversy again, this time for comparing Rachel Jeantel, the 19-year old star witness in the Trayvon Martin case, to Tyler Perry's black matriarch character, "Madea."

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Many found the remark offensive. But Jones, who has apologized for her ill-conceived attempts at humor before, has not yet responded to her critics, at least on Twitter:

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Instead, she issued the following statement via Twitter:

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Dark-skinned and plus-sized: The real Rachel Jeantel story

Fri, 28 Jun 2013 12:01:00 +0000

Trayvon Martin’s trial might be intriguing, fascinating cultural theater to some. To me, it is more akin to a cultural trauma: a continual reminder of how unsafe all those young black men that I love actually are as they move through the world -- and how tenuous and torturous it would be to seek justice on their behalf. Troubled, though, by the negative characterizations of Trayvon Martin’s friend Rachel Jeantel, after her first day of testimony, I tuned in yesterday in a show of sofa-based, sister-girl solidarity.

Immediately, I heard newscasters referring to her prior testimony, which I had watched on video, as combative and aggressive. And I felt my pressure start to rise.

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.

Crackers, please…

Thu, 27 Jun 2013 20:28:00 +0000

Finally people on the right have begun to see that there may be an aspect of racism at the heart of the Trayvon Martin case – and predictably, it’s against accused killer George Zimmerman.

On Wednesday prosecution witness Rachel Jeantel, who was on her cellphone with Martin while he was being pursued by Zimmerman, actually testified that Martin told her he was being followed by “a creepy ass cracker." But it wasn’t until Thursday that it blew up the right wing of the Internet – when Jeantel offered the badgering defense attorney Don West her opinion that the term isn’t racist.

From Glenn Beck’s the Blaze to the Breitbots to smaller right-wing shriekers to Twitter trolls everywhere, white grievance-mongers seemed less bothered by the fact that Martin allegedly used the term, than by Jeantel saying it wasn’t a slur.

The smearing of Rachel Jeantel

Thu, 27 Jun 2013 18:56:00 +0000

Rachel Jeantel is a 19-year-old Florida woman. On Facebook and Twitter, she's been known to post photos of her nails and talk about drinking. She is also the last person to have spoken with Trayvon Martin before George Zimmerman shot him to death last year, the woman who was on the phone with him when his fateful encounter unfolded. She is known in the justice system as Witness #8 in Zimmerman's trial. She is, in fact, the prosecution's key witness. But you'd be forgiven if you'd gotten the impression recently that she was sitting up there to defend herself.

Jeantel does not fit the comfortable image of the grieving girl. As Rachel Samara wrote Wednesday in Global Grind, "A predominantly white jury is not going to like Rachel Jeantel," a girl "who has no media training and who is fully entrenched in a hostile environment." There is confusion over whether or not she was Martin's girlfriend, which eradicates her chances of being depicted as a devastated young quasi-widow. On the stand, she has been blunt, hostile and at times seemingly confused. Online, she has a documented history that includes partying. She is not thin or blond or demure. So there goes her credibility.

Zimmerman trial witness tells attorney: “That’s real retarded, sir”

Thu, 27 Jun 2013 17:44:00 +0000

Rachel Jeantel, the woman whom 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was talking to on the phone moments before he was shot and killed, offered testimony at the trial where George Zimmerman stands accused of murder. But the prosecution's star witness was less than impressed with the defense. Things intensified (and got politically incorrect) when Zimmerman's lawyer suggested that perhaps Martin was lying about his whereabouts when on the phone with her:

Witness: Trayvon Martin knew he was being followed

Wed, 26 Jun 2013 18:59:00 +0000

Rachel Jeantel, 19, the last person to speak to Trayvon Martin, described the phone conversation she had with him before George Zimmerman shot him:

She said she was on the phone with Trayvon when someone - presumed to be Zimmerman - started following him.

Trayvon described the man as a "creepy ass cracker" Jeantel said.

Jeantel said she told Trayvon she was worries that the man was a rapist. Trayvon said to "stop playing with him like that."

While being questioned about what was happening, Trayvon said that N-word "is now following him."