Rachel Jeantel - Impolite or Misunderstood?

Reactions and Perspectives of African American Women in Response to Rachel Jeantel's Behavior on Trial

In order to further understand how culture and im(politeness) further interact our class interviewed three African american females over the age of 19. We asked them them the following questions on Rachel's behavior:

1. How do you assess Rachel's behavior? What do you think about her behavior?

• "Rachel acted like she didn't know about the length of time she needed to be available for trial
• She wasn't told the amount of time and she wasn't prepped...she did the best she could do" - respondent one 

2. How do you think the general public talked about Rachel?

• "Some people tend to pre judge people- this young person was not open to the court, or the courts priorirties" - respondent 1



Don West's Daughter ignorantly uses social media to broadcast upon the said "stupidity" of Rachel Jeantel.

• "her short answers, her snapping, her attitude, came off as a bad character, why would you get upset with them asking her questions when she is trying to help her friend. He (the defense attorney, Don West) made it a point to use Ebonics when reenacting what she said, to make her sound uneducated. How she was portrayed in the media, even if the words uneducated were not used it was definitely suggested" - respondent 3

3. Was there something supportable about her behavior?      

• "She appeared she had other plans, so she became frustrated and stressed out" - respondent 1
• "Justifiable in emotions and reflected upon her frustration" - respondent 2

4. Was there something not supportable about her behavior?

• "I can see people looking at that from different perspectives, when planning something important to them, I can see that police etc should have prioritize the court , so I can see that her attitude as not acceptable. From her perspective I can see it as justifiable, young people prioritize what  they are thinking about"-respondent 3

4. Did Rachel display home training that many are taught in the African-American community?

• "she porttayed home training- there are various types, there is no one style of home training in the aac various social classes cross over, and intersect within hometraining and a particular training style, in terms of personality" - respondent 1 
• "one thing I noticed the second day she was still short paced, making it a point to get her point apart, in that sense, she answered in complete sentences, yes sir no sir, which are considered as polite behaviors" - respondent 3
• "thinking about how I grew up, southern training, no matter what age treat elders with utmost respect, my mother would approve of speaking to elder like Rachel did. How was Rachel trained? Maybe speaking up was a priority in her household" - respondent 3
• "my perception would not say this was the home training I had. I was taught to respect authority figures, depends on household and culture" - respondent 2

5. What have you learned as an African-American woman about behaving in public? What are some of your experiences?

• "when I was a child, you didn’t want to say anything that wasn’t deemed polite. Because if another adult heard you say something impolite it would get back to your parents before you get back to your parents. It varys from ethnic to household. Always use your p’s and q’s. address them clearly. Its not just what you said, it’s the manner in which you said it. You are to make sure that you are respectful" - respondent 1
• "people aren’t raised the same way, in my experience as an African American women my behavior is judged more than other ethnicities, “you guys are cool like for African American people, you have that black people are always late thing going for you” more conscious of stereo types because you don’t want to give people reason to categorize you"- respondent 3
• "I learned to behave, told I would be treated differently as an African American female, often iwould be perceived negatively by whites, I try to demonstrate professional behaviors" - respondent 2

 6. Are there other responses that you would like to share that we may have overlooked?

• "I think the more we relate to one another the better we get at communicating and understanding eachother, individuality and social phenomi the more we can connect as people to people the more we can care about eachother and communicate with eachother how do I want to be portrayed with my own authenticity, there will be people who mis interpret ones behavior, because of there own priorities and concerns, or their own culture." - respondent 1
• "one of the things I’ve learned is to not be so easily offended, and the only perspective I have to go off of is from the only perspective that I know. That’s your opinion that’s uour experience. I cannto control you actions but I can control my own. See things from others eyes, look at thing with a more open view, easily to be less offended"- respondent 3

Misrepresentations of Rachel Jeantel

The Reality 



 Rachel proves to a competent, intelligent, concerned friend of Trayvon's outside of the pressures of the courtroom

Our response to our qualitative data:

We have gathered that the women support Rachel Jeantel for various reasons. One of them being that Rachel is included in their said "in-group", meaning that they relate to Rachel because she is an African-American woman. We can see that people trust and relate others within the same "in-group". For example, you may feel more comfortable and supportive of those within your college rather than a group of students that go to a rival college. The women continuously defended Rachel in a way you would defend your school in competition with other schools within your conference. They brought up many variables to justify the way she was acting including how she did not have enough time, she was not prepped, and may have been upset from the loss of Trayvon Martin. A word that seemed to be repeated was frustrated, frustrated with time, loss, location, situation and almost being treated like a criminal. Rachel is not a criminal but persecuted because of her race and use of Ebonics. The interviewees refused to bring another African-American woman down, after how much their demographic has been previously oppressed. Respondent number one ended her interview with the following quote "I think the more we relate to one another the better we get at communicating and understanding each other, individuality and social phenomenon. The more we can connect as people to people the more we can care about each other and communicate with each other. How do I want to be portrayed with my own authenticity? There will be people who mis-interpret ones behavior, because of there own priorities and concerns, or their own culture.". We think this quote is especially relevant in relation to the women's responses because they truly empathize with Rachel's struggle in being misunderstood as a African-American women. It is critical to band together and communicate in order to understand and connect with each other with no bias of race. Though people will misinterpret behaviors or politeness like Rachel's behavior was, it is up to us as human beings to try and understand and communicate to bridge the language gap which is causing controversy still today in cases like Rachel Jeantels.

References

(2013). [Image of photograph]. Sanford, Florida; Cox Media Group. Retrieved December 5, 2013, from http://www.wftv.com/news/news/local/zimmerman-trial-juror-rachel-jeantel-interviews-cn/nYrXm/

(2013). [Image of photograph]. Meme. Retrieved December 5, 2013, from http://memecrunch.com/meme/NRK2/rachel-jeantel-is-so-stupid

(2013). [Image of photograph]. West Palm Beach, Florida; Stormfront . Retrieved December 5, 2013, from http://www.stormfront.org/forum/t977868-5/

Phillips, K. (Photographer). (2013). Don West: Offensive Selfie Of George Zimmerman’s Attorney Goes Viral. [Image of photograph]. We usl news. Retrieved December 5, 2013, from http://weusinews.com/2013/06/don-west-offensive-selfie-of-george-zimmermans-attorney-goes-viral/

(Respondent 1, personal communication, December 2, 2013)

(Respondent 2, personal communication, December 2, 2013)

(Respondent 3, personal communication, December 2, 2013)