Thursday, June 27, 2013

You might be a racist if...

A blogger suggests racism is afoot if certain jurors in the George Zimmerman trial see Rachel Jeantel as something other than a credible witness.

From a website called Global Grind:
And if the 5 white jurors (excluding the 1 Latina) are like most white people I know, they are unfortunately not going to like Rachel. They won't understand her, especially not her defensive nature, and this will unfortunately work against her. Even though it shouldn't. 
I can imagine George Zimmerman's defense is just hoping some of those 5 white jurors have some prejudices (as most people do), or hell, are even racist, because if they are, their tactic to make Rachel out to be less intelligent, rather than less credible than she actually is, might actually work.
It is precisely the task assigned to a jury to weight all the evidence and testimony in a trial. It is a juror's duty to weigh credibility of each and every witness presented.

We don't know the jury members impressions of  Jeantel and her testimony. But the writer at Global Grind doesn't even mention the possibility that others on the jury (besides those who are white) may also find Jeantel less than credible. Assuming thoughts and perceptions of jurors based solely on the juror's race or ethnicity seems, well, a tad racist to me.

No comments:

Post a Comment