Rachel Jeantel... A Leader Amongst Followers

Rachel Jeantel smirks while giving her testimony during the trial of her slain friend, Trayvon Martin.

As an up and coming expert on strategic communication practices, I was very disturbed recently, when I got the chance to see a leader of our time become ridiculed by social media users. I'm referring to the Trayvon Martin case. I noticed that it was being aired on HLN and so I decided to watch.

I'm already familiar with the incident as I wrote an article about it for Troy University's student newspaper, the Tropolitan. What I perused doing the duration that I watched, left me feeling very good about our generation in terms of the courage that we have embarked. I saw a young black woman giving her testimony as to what she remembered happened the night that her friend Trayvon Martin was killed by the self-appointed neighborhood watchman, George Zimmerman.

As this 19-year-old young lady continued her testimony, I took notice of a few things, as I'm sure, so did the rest of those who were also watching the trial either through the TV or live stream through their personal computers. I noticed that Rachel Jeantel is not very articulate nor well-read. This was obvious due to her response to questions pertaining back to the night of Trayvon's death. Jeantel also appeared to be very fatigued as she spoke with an exhausted breath and a very low pitched tone.

Jeantel in the form of Shrek.

 As I convinced myself to stop watching, I then logged on to social media outlets via my smartphone as I was most certain that not-so-nice things were more than likely being said about the young lady. I was right. Instagram was filled with mean and derogatory post about about Rachel, as was Twitter and Facebook. Users poked fun at Rachel's vocabulary skills, her response to questions and her broken English. In addition to those things people also made fun at her appearance, more specifically, her weight and pigmentation.

Jeantel, presented as a Star Wars character.

 As a communication professional, I was outraged at the terrible things that I was seeing and reading about her. I agree, Jeantel could have done a better job with her testimony, but I understand that if someone is not taught how to correctly speak and articulate themselves in front of large crowds, how can we expect that from them.

Jeantel is from Miami, English is not her first language and she is from a notoriously rough neighborhood. Even with such facts, people were still heartless. Even knowing such facts, people still did not give her the credit that she deserved for mustering up the courage to go under oath in front of all those people, including her friend's killer, parents and relatives; along with the judge and media, while try her best to recant what happened that night while on the phone with Trayvon Martin. If anything, DOESN'T THAT MAKE HER A HERO? Shouldn't we praise her??

A young lady pokes fun at Trayvon's death, as she is dressed in black face, a hoodie and is carrying a bag of skittles and can of iced tea as Trayvon was the night he was killed.

 As a communication professional, I did not exit my mothers womb in 1989 with a high level of intelligence and advance understanding of the world that I now posses. I was conditioned and groomed over so many years.

High school taught me how to listen, college taught me how to think critically.

Jeantell is a leader. She is a leader because of the amount of courage that it takes to do what she is doing. I am more than certain that she is aware of the media backlash that will be available on the Internet for a very long time. I am certain, that her relatives are upset at what they are seeing on their various social media time lines.

Jeantel is not only a leader, but also, an innovator for unknowingly bringing forth the attention needed to remind educators that we must do a better job with educating the future leaders of the free world as it is them who will succeed us.

Trayvon Martin's parents. His dad holds back tears during the trial of his son's death.

 Lastly, Jeantel provides vision. A vision into the damaging effects that social media can have on any person, place or thing. Has anyone stopped and asked themselves, how does she feel right now, or what is she going through? How would you feel if you logged on to Instagram and saw such heartless post from people who do not know you nor want to take the time to get to know you.

I think that it is terrible that we live in a country where education is readily available but hardly ever utilized and if it is, then it is hard to tell by the actions of most.

19-year-old Rachel Jeantel has inspired and motivated me as a communication professional and student to share the knowledge that I am learning with as many people as possible in order to help produce an articulate society, free of what Rachel Jeantel appears to represent on camera and into the type of person that I am certain Jeantel inspires to be.