Rachel Jeantel, a key witness in the Zimmerman trial, said that Rush Limbaugh sounded racist when he used the term “nigga,” which she had earlier explained was not a racial slur.
On his show yesterday, Limbaugh used the word several times, crediting Jeantel for explaining the meaning and appropriateness of the word.
Speaking with the Huffington Post’s Marc Lamont Hill, Jeantel reacted to Limbaugh’s use of the word, saying: “When you say it out loud in person in front of people, that’s disrespectful. . . . It is racist for an adult.”
This seems to contradict Jeantel’s earlier comments, in which she explained that the “new” n-word was not only limited to young people, but “old people use it too!”
Jeantel was asked by Hill if she considered it racist when she used the word, to which Jeantel responded with incredulity, “Trust me I’m not racist. . . . My grandmother is white, so hey, how can I be racist?”
On Monday, Jeantel explained how the n-word’s meaning changed around the year 2000. “They started spelling it ‘nigga,’” said Jeantel, and it applied to any male — black, white, Hispanic, and even Chinese. However, the original spelling and pronunciation of the word (ending with “-er”) remains a racist word, she explained.