And Justice For All? Trayvon Martin, Rachel Jeantel, and America's Enduring Racial Pathology

While watching the second day of the trial of George Zimmerman, the Florida man who pulled the trigger and shot Trayvon Martin to death, I got real clear on America's justice system: If someone like Zimmerman decides that, like Trayvon, my black sons look suspicious and follows them--all despite the police saying not to--and shoots them while they're talking on their cell phone to a friend, that friend will be put on the stand during the trial and grilled about whether English is his or her first language, and whether he or she knows how to read and write in cursive.

The depth of condescension while Zimmerman's disgraceful attorney questioned Trayvon's friend, Rachel Jeantel, the thinly veiled racial doublespeak, and the attempt to turn Trayvon's use of the n-word and calling Zimmerman a cracker into a, "You see America, they're racist against us and they call each other racist names, so clearly, Trayvon Martin was an animal who attacked poor innocent George," moment made my blood boil.

And as Jeantel was being given the "you sho is big, black, and dumb" routine by Zimmerman's attorney, I saw folks in my social media six degrees of separation losing hope. Sure, we raked Paula Deen over the coals for her "I is what I is and I ain't changin'" racism--and she got fired from a whole bunch of places--but if we're honest, earlier this week after the Supreme Court of the United States dismantled that cornerstone of the civil rights movement, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, many of us were left feeling more than a little bit powerless. After all, we live in a world where Walmart can fire Paula Deen, but as powerful as they are, even they cannot fire Clarence Thomas.

Indeed, as we absorbed yet another reminder that when black folks pledge allegiance to the flag "with liberty and justice for all," that "all" is still conditional, folks began preparing themselve mentally and emotionally for Zimmerman to be acquitted of murder because there's no way a white female jury can avoid being sucked into the constant othering and pathologizing of black Americans--of a black male like Trayvon Martin, and a black female witness like Rachel Jeantel.

In "A Letter to Rachel Jeantel" the brilliant Kadijah Costley White summed up so well how the racial pathologizing of Jeantel includes, "comparisons to 'Precious' (as if Gabourey Sidibe isn't a real person or, irony of ironies, that Precious wasn't also a victim of trauma)," and "people making fun of your frankness, your tenacity, your refusal to codeswitch out of your mother-sister-brother tongue."

Watching Jeantel testify I thought of the many times I've been spoken to with racist condescension by a white person. Every black person has had those moments where we've said to ourselves, if I was white, you wouldn't talk to me like this. I've never been in a witness box, but I've felt the condescension when, for example, white women have tried to pet my hair. But being insulted is the least of black folks' worries. Dire consequences can result when the person bringing their inherent sense of superiority to your attention is a police officer, or a judge, or your boss. You point out the racism and you're the problem that needs to be dealt with.

Despite that reality, what gave me hope is when Costley White wrote to Jeantel,

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.

In truth, you're part of a long legacy of black women so often portrayed as the archetypal Bitch, piles of Sassafrasses, Mammies, and Jezebels easily dismissed, caricatured, and underestimated. For black women, in particular, being the bitch represents our historical exclusion from the cult of true womanhood, a theme traditionally bounded and defined by its contrast to white femininity. For some folks, being black and being a woman makes us less of both.

Although America may dismiss Rachel Jeantel, all of us so-called angry black bitches are a collective spirit sitting in the witness box with her. America may not see Jeantel's--or our--inherent nobility, bravery, beauty, intelligence, and truth, but it's there, whether you like it or not. And we will not be silent.

Costley White went on to write of Jeantel, "In you I see a fierce resistance that reminds me of ancestors past. Each time you open your mouth, look down, clench your cheeks in a fresh wave of pain, I see Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, and Fannie Lou Hamer joining their spirits and bonding their strength to yours."

Ancestors past.

While Rachel Jeantel was on the stand today, President Obama made a pilgrimage to the Goree Island Slave Trade House in Senegal and looked out the Door of No Return. Obama said the visit is a reminder

"that we have to remain vigilant when it comes to the defense of people's human rights–because I'm a firm believer that humanity is fundamentally good, but it's only good when good people stand up for what's right. And this is a testament to when we're not vigilant in defense of what's right, what can happen."

Perhaps the ancestors of a murdered teenager named Trayvon Martin were forced through that same door and into chattel slavery here in the New World. Even though his--and my--ancestors could not in one instant overthrow the institution of slavery, they resisted and chipped away at it with every breath. There was no justice for them, but they did not stop trying to achieve it.

Our confidence that Trayvon will get justice hangs by a thread--depending on whether those members of the jury want to be, as Obama said, good people standing up for what's right. Yet we cannot be silent or hesitant in agitating for that justice, for demanding that people actually do what's right. We cannot wait, my sons cannot wait, this country cannot wait.