For Trayvon Martin’s friend Rachel Jeantel, a ‘village’ of mentors trying to keep her on track

Washington Post ^ | June 4, 2014 | Krissah Thompson and Lonnae O’Neal Parker

[Second Amendment First]

The young woman walking across the stage in cap and gown in front of hundreds of celebrants has a familiar face. Even outside of this high school auditorium, she is recognized. On city streets here, strangers walk up to her and say, awkwardly, “Oh my God, you’re the girl from the Trayvon Martin case.” ¶ Nothing angers Rachel Jeantel more. Martin was not the one on trial. ¶ “Trayvon is the victim!” she often snaps back. “He did nothing.” ¶ A year after Jeantel became a central figure in the trial of George Zimmerman, who had killed her 17-year-old friend, there remains within her a flash of the fire she showed on the witness stand — that sass and bravado, defiant body language layered over deep hurt. Heavy sighs and folded arms. ¶ “Why he need to lie about that, sir?” she challenged a defense lawyer at one point during her testimony. ¶ “You listening?” she said at another. ¶ The nationally televised trial projected her full-figured image, her words, her urban African American dialect into the national consciousness. Jeantel, the last person to speak to Martin before he was killed, unwittingly became a proxy for pitched cultural debate, a stand-in for projections about race, class and especially all the things Americans — black and white — want, don’t want and can’t tolerate seeing in young black women. ¶ “I had to laugh it off,” Jeantel, 20, later says of the ubiquitous television, social-media and water-cooler commentary last August that derided her weight, her manner of speaking and her style of dress.

“No. Be honest,” the middle-aged woman sitting next to Jeantel interrupts, sternly.

*

The woman is Rose Reeder, who has become part of Jeantel’s “village,” an extended network of mentors, tutors and advisers — black professionals all.

[Second Amendment First]

Joyner won’t say how much the foundation has contributed to Jeantel’s care. “What matters is, did it work? The short answer to that is no,” Joyner says. Rachel graduated “not being motivated to get ready for the world.” Joyner wanted her college-ready — to get herself college ready. That’s what the foundation was paying for. “The educational system failed her, but here was an opportunity to do more than the system was offering her,” he says. “We took her to the water, and now the rest is up to her.” The offer remains open.

[Boogieman]

“Trayvon is the victim!” she often snaps back. “He did nothing.”

---

Not according to your sworn testimony, liar.

[dfwgator]

Joyner offered to pay for Jeantel’s college tuition at a historically black college

So they rail against Segregation, but they support historically black colleges? Segregation for me, but not for thee.

[FreedomPoster]

>>Vereen says an assessment showed Jeantel was reading and doing mathematics on a fourth-grade level.

Surprising no one with a 3-digit IQ able to effectively utilize it.

[Dilbert San Diego]

I was wondering too, why the media didn’t make it an issue. Maybe I missed some news reports on that particular issue.

It makes you wonder too, however, why nobody was charged with perjury or evidence tampering, or whatever the legal terminology is. She allegedly had written that letter herself, yet, couldn’t read a letter she supposedly had written.

[Lizavetta]

The nationally televised trial projected her full-figured image, her words, her urban African American dialect into the national consciousness.

In other words, boys and girls, she's obese and illiterate. Like a previous poster said, if someone like her who is clearly poorly educated can get a diploma, a diploma means nothing.

[tumblindice]

Git in mah belly you creepy-azz crackah! Man ah'm hungry. Ah could take you in one bite, you albino-lookin' retart.

[jiggyboy]

Everything she mumbled and drooled out eventually contradicted something else. Eventually it came out that she “dictated” (wink wink) her heartfelt and important letter to a “friend”, and later signed it.

[N. Theknow]

Vereen says an assessment showed Jeantel was reading and doing mathematics on a fourth-grade level.

Wouldn't that be a "fof grate lebel?"

[Dilbert San Diego]

Trayvon was giving Zimmerman a “whoop ass”, which apparently is ghetto talk for showing somebody who is boss by beating them up.

See, Zimmerman was not culturally sensitive enough, to understand that in ghetto culture, you have to submit to whoop ass to boost the self esteem of ghetto thugs. (sarcasm)

[grobdriver]

Martin was not the one on trial.

Actually, he kinda was - and found guilty.

[rdcbn]

Guess she is finding Old School is a bit more taxing than “New Skewl”.

Having spent a bit of time mentoring kids in the ghetto where I cared more about their future than they did, my hat is off to the members of the “village” who spoon fed her academically to get her through graduation at her alternative learning center.

They made quite an accomplishment to drag her across the finish line to graduation

[Second Amendment First]

As she accepted her diploma, Jeantel crossed the stage in a pair of camel- colored stiletto booties, accented in gold. Vereen and Andre scrunched their faces at the sight of the shoes.

*

“I did it,” Jeantel says, looking upward, taking hold of her diploma, talking — she would later say — to God and to Trayvon.

[RushIsMyTeddyBear]

You forgot “sir”. ;)

[molson209]

the House or Senate is in her Future ,maybe both

[csvset]

So, she’s not smarter than a fifth grader?

[MrEdd]

Among her peers, graduating at all is rare.

[RushIsMyTeddyBear]

LMAO! Those shoes are a sight to behold, too.

[Snickering Hound]

[RightGeek]

It would take a brain transplant to get Rachel college ready.