Voting Station

Rachel Jeantel

Please vote to return to collections.

Oddity

The Resume

    (February 1, 1994- )
    Miami Gardens resident <9230(North Miami, FL)
    Key witness (No. 8) for the prosecution in the George Zimmerman trial
    Reportedly the last person to speak with Trayvon Martin before his being shot to death (Feb. 26, 2012)
    Court testimony came under immense scrutiny, in addition to several posts on her social media account (Jun. 26-29, 2013)

Why she might be annoying:

    She came off as uninterested, uncooperative, and disrespectful during her (at times bizarre) testimony.
    At 19, she demonstrated a fourth-grade reading-level.
    She was forced to 'clean up' her social media accounts, after a slew of embarrassing tweets were made public entailing derogatory/racial language, smoking, and alcohol usage.
    She listed her occupation as 'My mama n daddy do all the work I spend it' on her Facebook page.
    She listed herself as student at UMiami on Facebook, despite still being in high school (obviously the registrar didn't turn up any enrollment records).
    Her testimony came under fire both for her use of the word 'retarded,' as well as making potentially homophobic remarks (saying she thought Zimmerman could have been 'a gay rapist').
    She admitted the victim had used the term 'creepy ass cracker' in their text conversation. When she was asked during cross examination if she considered it to be 'a racial comment,' she answered 'no.'
    She was proof that the prosecution team was their own worst enemy (their 'star witness' granted the defense a lot of footing for a rebound).
    She turned up on Piers Morgan Tonight sporting a dramatic makeover to call the Zimmerman verdict 'BS.'
    When asked about the Jury's reasoning for voting Not Guilty, she said: 'Well, the jury, they see their facts ... that's old school people. We in a new school, our generation, my generation' (the audience erupted in applause).

Why she might not be annoying:

    She had been friends with Trayvon since elementary school.
    Her parents were Haitian immigrants who spoke English mixed with Creole (explaining her dialect).
    She was criticized for not attending Trayvon's wake, but she reasoned that it would be too emotional for her to have done so.
    She was reduced to a racially-charged meme likening her to Precious and the 'Shrek' character.
    The defense unfairly sought to exploit her near-illiteracy to characterize her as an incompetent (she admitted on the stand to not being able to read cursive).
    She briefly turned the tables on defense attorney Don West during cross examination; ripping him for canceling a scheduled joint interview on short notice.
    Tom Joyner granted her a full scholarship to any HBCU of her choice, provided that she graduated High School.
    She spent seven hours a day studying with three tutors and a psychologist to better her language skills and get through her senior year.
    Her graduation ceremony was attended by Trayvon's mother, Sabrina Fulton, who said: 'She didn’t give up and that goes to say a lot for her character and who she is. [Its] like having Trayvon there saying, You did it. You proved people wrong.'
    She became the Zimmerman trial's inverse equal to Mark Fuhrman (harping over racial semantics with a witness, and completely derailing the case as a result).
    The polarizing response to her instant fame exposed a deep generational rift in terms of how Americans perceive race (specifically lower-class black women).

Credit: BoyWiththeGreenHair


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    In 2023, Out of 28 Votes: 64.29% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 15 Votes: 80.0% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 12 Votes: 83.33% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 15 Votes: 33.33% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 14 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2018, Out of 30 Votes: 53.33% Annoying
    In 2017, Out of 120 Votes: 72.50% Annoying