As soon as 19-year-old Rachel Jeantel hit the witness stand, everything about her was up for grabs—her blackness, her education, her English, her weight, her facial expressions, her tweets and posts. Isn’t it mind boggling to consider that during the televised State vs. George Zimmerman trial there seemed to be much more discussion and debate about Rachel Jeantel’s character and credibility than there was about George Zimmerman’s?
There is way too much to say about the mistreatment of Rachel Jeantel (both in and out of the courtroom),
but I’d like to highlight one of the moments when defense attorney Don West is
cross-examining Jeantel, who was on the phone with Trayvon when the encounter
that led to Trayvon’s death occurred.
When probing Rachel on the stand, West states that Trayvon
“confronted” Zimmerman when “he could have just
run home.”
Rachel, whose unwavering stare seems to see right through
West’s courtroom shenanigans, speaks steadily into the mic, “Why he need to lie
about that, sir?”
There’s a brief pause while Don West gulps his water, and
then proceeds. “Maybe if he decided to assault Zimmerman he didn’t want you to
know about it?” Rachel immediately comes back with a monotone, “That’s real
retarded, sir. That’s real retarded to do that, sir…”
I’ve gone back to YouTube numerous times to replay that
scene. Although many saw Jeantel’s response as further evidence that she was “a
train-wreck witness” and “ghetto trash,” I found her response cathartic and in
the context of that courtroom, brilliant.
The only other televised moment that had a similar effect on
me was the 2008 presidential-shoe-throwing incident. Remember that Iraqi
journalist who threw one and then two zapatos full-force at President’s Bush
face at a Baghdad
What does one do in the ugly face of Superpower politics?
How do you defend yourself or the dead? Maybe one reaches for whatever you have,
an angry shoe, for instance, or ghetto lexicon to resist and to remind the
world that it’s all a farce. That’s what, in my opinion, Rachel Jeantel did during
the George Zimmerman trial by just being herself and for that I’d like to say,
“Thank you, Rachel!”
Khadijah Costley White in “A Letter to Rachel Jeantel” captures
my exact sentiments when she writes to Rachel, “You exemplify, in your girth,
skin tone, language, and manner, a refusal to concede. You are a thousand Nat
Turners, a quiet spring of rebellion, and some folks don’t know how to handle
that.”
Definitely many folks didn’t know how to handle Rachel
Jeantel on the stand. So much negative attention has been paid to Rachel
Jeantel’s speech and body language, yet so little has been discussed in regards
to Don West’s. Somehow Rachel Jeantel’s courtroom disposition and teenage-Creole-Black-ghetto-speak
speaks volumes, but Don West’s privileged-White-legal-speak, his arrogance, and
cultural ignorance does not. I’m sorry, but “That’s real retarded.”
Before I proceed with this blog, I’d like to say a few words
about the word retarded. As an English teacher and writer, I believe words are
very powerful and I understand why the word retarded is offensive to many. In
fact, there’s a campaign to end the use of the R-word. At http://www.r-word.org/ you can join millions
and pledge to not use it.
There are many words I dislike and find offensive, but that
does not mean I would join a campaign to eradicate them. I don’t believe in the
eradication of words; I believe in the creation, the transformation, and in
some cases, the abuse of them, but NOT the eradication. So a warning for R-word
sensitive readers; I will be using the word retarded repeatedly in this blog. After
all, the verb “retard” has been around (in the written record) since the
1700’s. It’s not the word’s fault that a bunch of retarded medical
professionals in the U.S.
Retard:
- to make slow; delay the development or progress of (an action, process, etc.); hinder or impede.
- to be delayed
- a slowing down, diminution, or hindrance, as in a machine.
- slang. Disparaging.
- a mentally retarded person.
- a person who is stupid, obtuse, or ineffective in some way
I’m not an investigative journalist and this is just a blog, but this past week in a desperate
desire to explore and better understand my own outrage over the George
Zimmerman trial, the mistreatment of Rachel Jeantel, and my growing obsession
with the word retarded, I asked a few people what they thought about the R-word
or if they had anything to say about Rachel Jeantel’s response to Don West’s
retarded theory.
The first person I asked was the one sitting right next to
me. My girlfriend Martiza had this to say: “It’s a demeaning word, but we used
it a lot while growing up. I remember the nuns in Catholic school used it on us
often. They would say things like, ‘Why don’t you have your thinking cap on?
What are you, retarded?’ In regards to the Zimmerman trial, Don
West was trying to pin Rachel into a corner. I think he was also repeatedly
trying to humiliate her, but she saw right through his trickery. I think she
nailed it when she told him how stupid he was being in his suggestion that
Trayvon was the aggressor. For those who criticize Rachel’s use of language, I
wonder what language, other than her own, was she supposed to use to say what
she needed to say, which was basically you’re
acting retarded, sir.”
Over breakfast in Long
Beach
Arelene Keizer from UC Irvine shared that “Using the word
retard isn’t acceptable, but she’s a young person, it’s the language she speaks
in. I thought the attack on her was really a way of avoiding the violence that
was going on in the courtroom, the violence that was happening to her, the
violence that was a kind of reiteration of the violence Zimmerman perpetrated
on Trayvon Martin.”
On Facebook, I harassed one of my favorite writers/thinkers
to share her retarded thoughts. Myriam Gurba said, “I do not think that the
word retarded is retarded. I do think that it would be retarded to ban the word
retarded.” Since Gurba is a high school English teacher, I also asked her if
she hears her students using the R-word and what she thinks about this. “I hear
kids using the word retarded but I think its one of those words that's so
divorced from its origin that kids aren't using it in a hateful way. That's
what happens with language. If we were to examine the word origins of lots of
words, we might find weird and hateful roots to them but most of us aren't
etymologists so we have no idea where our words come from and how they came to
be. Like the word jip comes from gypsy, a group historically associated with
swindling. I don't think most people using the words nowadays are associating
with this stereotype but hey, that's language. It's got longevity and mystery.”
I also texted a couple of friends with, What do you think about the word retarded? Sandra Muñoz, East
LA Employment Lawyer, texted back, “I
like the word retarded, but I’m not allowed to say it anymore which is really
retarded. Remember we went to that gathering where women were urging other
women to stop using the word bitch and then we started calling each other bitch
ad nauseam? I feel the same thing is going to happen with the word retarded.”
Liz Vega texted:
“I am deeply aware that calling someone retarded or using it to describe
something is the same as using the word nigger, spic, or any other slur and that’s
why I wouldn’t use it in a public sphere…but behind close doors, I think it’s
retarded to be censoring ourselves. I also think that the fact that the medical
establishment changed mentally retarded to intellectual disability is retarded.
This was done because retarded was being used as an insult, so guess what?
Censoring made it more powerful!”
In regards to the Trayvon Martin case, what’s more offensive
than any word could ever be is a verdict that defies reason: Trayvon (the
17-year-old armed with Skittles) and not Zimmerman (the 28-year-old armed with
a gun) was the aggressor. What’s offensive is Don West’s absurd knock knock
joke at the onset of the trial. Offensive is the repeated assertion (by both
the prosecuting and defense attorneys, and later the jury) that race was NOT a
factor in this case. “This is not about race,” said prosecuting attorney John
Guy in his closing statement, “it’s about right and wrong.” Is he fricking retarded?
And yet, we have seen the erasure of race in this case on
many levels. In her July 16th Lesbrain blog, entitled George Zimmerman/Jorge Zimmerhombre, Myriam Gurba reminds us that
“Although the evidence points to George Zimmerman being a bleeding douche
afroth with issues he is also…NOT WHITE.” Zimmerman, Gurba points out is part
German and part Afro-Peruvian. Posing a series of questions about identity and
access to White privilege, Gurba challenges the public discourse on this case, which
she describes as currently “stuck in the 1950’s.” Gurba goes on to argue that
if we are to equate Zimmerman with a baked salted galleta, we should expand the
lexicon to include the complexity of color. “He’s no cracker,” Gurba writes,
“he’s a Triscuit.”
I am so grateful to Gurba for the Triscuit metaphor. I feel it empowers us to be able to discuss the complexities of race
and power on another level. One of Gurba’s most interesting observations in the
Zimmerman case is actually a question: what allowed Zimmerman, who is
technically not White to access White privilege? Did his last name erase his “Other”
half in this courtroom? In another context, had Zimmerman attacked a White
youth, for example, he might have been cast into the role of the aggressive "Other.”
Over coffee yesterday, as I shared the Triscuit metaphor with two young brilliant minds, Jorge and Leslie, we pondered the deeper meaning of the actual colored cracker. Jorge winced and wanted to know what the intricately weaved Triscuit is made of. Leslie wondered if perhaps there is a new generation of people of color who aspire so much to be part of White America that they eradicate (via self-hate and denial) their color and colored history. Not everyone can do that, of course. Not everyone can bleach themselves and pass. But for those who do, may they suffer, said Leslie, “from some kind of Triscuit complex?”
So while Mr. Triscuit sat quietly in the courtroom like a coward, Miss Rachel Jeantel was thrown into the lion’s den with Don West asking a series of retarded questions that were loaded with subtext. Rachel Jeantel might not read cursive, but she sure knows how to read and respond to subtext, insinuation and bullshit. Don West can hide behind legal jargon and “legitimate” English all he wants, but his courtroom tactics and his role in this case stink of old, systematic “creepy-ass cracker” politics that aim to criminalize/dehumanize Black youth everywhere and that ultimately retard justice in America.
Links referenced in the blog:
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